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New England's "Own" War 
Correspondent 



Bert Ford was the only war correspondent from New England 
fully accredited with the American Expeditionary Forces and the 
British Armies. 

He was the only war correspondent authorized by the War 
Department to return from France with the Yankee Division. 

Mr. Ford was the only war correspondent from New England 
who accompanied the American Army of Occupation into Ger- 
many, where he remained three months studying conditions. 

He saw the German forces retreating, miles and miles of in- 
fantry and artillery, decked like a victorious army. He talked 
with German officers. He accompanied the squad that carried 
the first American flag across the Rhine. 

Representing one of the three big news agencies that feed all 
of the newspapers of the United States and Canada, Mr. Ford 
enjoyed a roving commission that enabled him to travel the entire 
length of the Western Front, from the sea to Switzerland. 

, He saw every type of troops in action and witnessed every 
battle in which Americans were engaged. This enabled him to 
make observations and comparisons which give greater value to 
his book. 

He interviewed all of the leading British, French and American 
generals. He was entertained by Marshal Foch and by General 
Pershing on their private trains. 

He interviewed and shook hands with King Albert of Belgium 
and King George of England, and the Prince of Wales. 

Mr. Ford was gassed in the eyes and throat, but not seriously. 
He had narrow escapes from bombs and shells. He saw the lines 
from an aeroplane and from an observation balloon. And after 
it all he says : 

"The American doughboy was the greatest figure in the world 
war." 

(PUBLISHER.) 




Photo by Green, Boston 



BERT FORD 

AS HE APPEARED ON OVERSEAS DUTY 



The 

Fighting Yankees 

Overseas 

By BERT FORD 



Dedicated to 
Harriet North Ford 




BOSTON 

NORMAN E. McPHAIL, PUBLISHER 

1919 






^G 



Copyrighted 191 9 by 
Norman E. McPhail 



>£ 
JK 



THE ATLANTIC PRINTING CO. 

201 South Street, Boston 



Secretary Baker's Tribute 

to the 

Yankee Division 



The Twenty-sixth Division, under the command of 
Major-General Clarence R. Edwards, embarked for France 
in September, 1917. It trained actively after its arrival in 
France, and in March, 1918, was associated with the 
Eleventh French Army Corps. It was with this corps until 
it moved to the district of Toul to take over the sector oc- 
cupied by the First Regular Division of the United States 
Army. In July it engaged in active offensive operations as 
a part of the Sixth French Army. It participated in the 
attack north of the Marne, and later played a decisive part 
in the battle of the San Mihiel salient and in the battle of 
the Argonne. 

Throughout its career it won the high praise of its French 
associates for its gallantry and soldierly qualities. It is one 
of America's veteran divisions, and it has left a record in 
France which is its full share of the glory achieved by our 
great army there. The people of the New England States 
who contributed th^se soldiers to the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces can welcome their heroes back, for they are 
heroes — men who have had a perilous and difficult duty and 
who have done it to the admiration of all beholders. They 
have had losses, and many of the men returned with wound 
chevrons to show the fierceness of the contests in which they 
participated, but they have exalted the traditions of the 
country from which they came, they have played the part 
of men on the greatest stage in the world, and they bring 
back glory for their own achievements and victory for the 
national cause. 

NEWTON D. BAKER. 



War Department 
Washington 



CONTENTS 

I. Perkins' Remarkable Feat 9 

II. Dilboy's Dying Shots 17 

III. In Front Line 210 Days • ■ • 23 

IV. America's Greatest Battle. $0 

V. Speaking of "Yanks" 89 

VI. Pertinent Citations 45 

VII. Front Line Famine and Mud 54 

VIII. Turned No Man's into "Yankee Land" 60 

IX. Armistice Day Attack 66 

X. Doughboys Are "Gun Fodder" 73 

XI. Logan's Front Line Service 79 

XII. McConnell Dies Leading Men 86 

XIII. Those "Gypsy Batteries" 93 

XIV. Battery A's Historic Shot 98 

XV. Keville's Ammunition Train 103 

XVI. The Fighting Engineers n0 

XVII. Heroic Machine Gunners 116 

XVIII. Edwards Eulogizes Litter-Bearers I 23 

XIX. A Surgeon's War Impressions 129 

XX. Yanks All Athletes 134 

XXI. Seicheprey a Reverse 14 ° 

XXII. The Army Axe 149 

XXIII. Conspiracy Charged 157 

XXIV. President Wilson's Visit 164 

XXV. The Fang of War m 

XXVI. Soldier Poets 176 



CONTENTS {Continued) 



XXVII. The "Sixth" Sense 182 

XXVIII. Salvation Doughnuts 189 

XXIX. Overseas Cemeteries 197 

XXX. Armistice Day 204 

XXXI. The War Curtain 217 

XXXII. Homeward Bound 225 

XXXIII. Worshippers in Rigging 234 

XXXIV. Terra Firma at Last 248 

XXXV. Spirit of 1861 and 1918 252 






FOREWORD 

In preparing this volume, dealing with the achieve- 
ments and sacrifices of the men of the Twenty-sixth (Yankee) 
Division overseas, the author tried, so far as was possible, to 
avoid the dull chronology of a history. He endeavored to 
make each chapter a narrative in itself, while retaining a 
historic sequence. He has given "close-ups" of the activities 
of the New England Crusaders on the Western Front, acts 
of personal bravery, intimate glimpses, and pertinent com- 
parisons, for the entertainment and instruction of the folks 
at home. 

The world war was so stupendous that no writer, artist, 
lecturer, or camera could hope adequately to describe or 
reproduce it in its entirety. It is only by incidents and 
anecdotes, by recounting the exploits of units and individual 
heroes, like Privates Perkins and Dilboy, that anything 
resembling a war picture can be suggested. 

The sons of New England fought true to form, fought 
with the valor they have displayed in every war. The 
writer was moved by two desires in producing this book: 
First, to do his share in giving all possible praise to the men 
in the ranks — to the American doughboy, who was the 
greatest figure in the war — and, secondly, to help keep fresh 
and firm the traditions of our beloved New England. 



THE FIGHTING YANKEES 
OVERSEAS 



CHAPTER I. 

Perkins' Remarkable Feat 

BThey called him "Mickey" for short, and as a 
term of endearment. He did not have the cut of 
a hero. Ten to one you would not have glanced 
at him a second time, if he passed, because there 
was such a swarm of his physical type at the front. 

But for pluck, Michael J. Perkins was in a class by 
himself. He was a first class private in D Company, 101st 
Infantry, which was made up of the old Ninth and Fifth 
Regiments of the Massachusetts National Guard, when 
the outfit sailed from Hoboken, in September, 1917, and 
only a scant fifty per cent of the original personnel returned. 

If you asked his comrades for further particulars about 
Perkins, they told you that he was "the son of 'Mike' 
Perkins of No. 247 E Street, South Boston, Massachusetts. " 

The men of the 101st never missed a chance to mention 
their Commonwealth, which testified to their pride and 
devotion. And they reminded you that Perkins "pulled 
one of the biggest single-handed stunts in the A.E.F." 

Private Perkins had been a teamster. He was rough 
and ready and no stickler for deportment. Fight was his 
middle name. 

Otherwise he never would have dared to jump into a 
cement "pillbox," slash his way through the enemy strong- 
hold with a trench knife, silence seven machine guns and 
capture more than a score of Germans. 

And he did this ALONE. 



10 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Sounds like a motion picture thriller, doesn't it? It 
isn't, though. It's gospel truth and the records of the 
Yankee Division bear proof of the achievement. Perkins 
came out of that trap with only a few minor hurts. 

The grenade which he tossed among the cooped-up 
Boches demoralized them and wounded several. The 
others, thinking the jig was up, lifted their arms and yelled 
"kamerad!" The few who showed fight were overpowered 
by Perkins' blade. 

After finishing that job, Private Perkins advanced with 
the column, and, within an hour, was wounded, but not 
fatally. The ambulance that was rushing him and others 
to the nearest evacuation hospital was struck by a German 
shell and Perkins was instantly killed. 

Colonel H. P. Hobbs, who commanded the 101st Infan- 
try during the absence of Colonel Edward L. Logan, 
recommended a Medal of Honor for Private Perkins and it 
was awarded to his father. The citation read: 

"Recommended a Medal of Honor (posthumous) for First 
Class Private Michael J. Perkins, on the following grounds : 

"'On Oct. 27, 1918, at Belleu Bois (Belleu Wood), Private 
Perkins alone voluntarily crawled to the rear of a German machine 
gun emplacement, the guns of which were firing on other American 
troops. The enemy occupying this emplacement would open the 
door at the rear and throw grenades at the platoon of which 
Private Perkins was a member. 

"'Private Perkins awaited his chance, and, when the door 
was again opened and a hand grenade thrown over him, hurled a 
grenade into the doorway, bursting open the door, and then, 
without hesitation or thought for his personal safety, drew his 
trench knife, and threw himself alone into the enemy emplacement, 
fighting hand-to-hand and capturing twenty or thirty of the 
enemy, wounding several and silencing seven machine guns.' 

"H. P. HOBBS, 

"Colonel, commanding 101st Infantry.'* 

The words, "A true extract copy," appear at the bottom 
of this citation and there is appended the following: 



PERKINS' REMARKABLE FEAT 11 

"NOTE — Private Perkins was wounded in this fight a short 
time after he had performed the above-described valorous deed. 
On his way to the rear the ambulance in which he was riding was 
struck by a hostile shell and Private Perkins was killed. 

"H. P. HOBBS, 

"Colonel 101st Infantry.'* 

In reporting the exploit to Major du Boisrouvray, under 
date of Dec. 5, for consideration by the French Army, 
Chaplain Lyman Rollins wrote : 

"Private Perkins brought out twenty or thirty of the enemy. 
Perkins, after throwing his grenade, could properly have awaited 
the attack of his platoon. He did not, however, but attacked 
alone. This permitted the advance of the troops that had been 
held up by the fire from the seven machine guns. This piece of 
work was witnessed by members of Perkins' company and has 
been sworn to by his company commander and several of the 
non-commissioned officers. " 

Captain Martene Courum of Brownville, Miss., was 
commanding D Company at the time. A regimental record 
of the deed says in part: 

"Private Perkins exhibited personal bravery above and beyond 
the call of duty so conspicuous as clearly to distinguish him for 
gallantry and intrepidity beyond his comrades, involving risk of 
life in the performance of a more than ordinarily hazardous service 
and the omission of which would not have subjected him to 
censure for failure in the performance of his duty." 

A bit of news known to few members of the regiment 
was that Chaplain Sherry of the 102d Infantry came across 
the young hero's body and buried it on Nov. 14, in a 
battle area described on Map 4 as "Section 28-20; 81.7, 
Verdun." 

Of all the instances of individual valor that came to my 
attention on the Belgian, British, French and American 
fronts, I know of none that surpassed that of Michael 
Perkins and few which equalled it for resourcefulness and 
grit. 



12 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Sergeant Alvin C. York, elder of a church at Pall Mall, 
Tenn., who has been acclaimed "the greatest hero in the 
A. E. F.," was aided by a detachment of seven men in 
killing twenty Germans, capturing 132 prisoners and silenc- 
ing thirty-six machine guns. A whale of a job that for 
York and his crew, but not exactly an individual exploit, 
though his comrades admitted the Tennessean did most of 
the fighting. 

Private Perkins was a born soldier and patriot. He was 
a man, every inch of him, and his parents found comfort 
and pride in the legacy of his sacrifice and courage. 

His act came within that category that inspires lec- 
turers, poets and sculptors. South Boston ought to per- 
petuate in bronze the gallantry of Perkins, a symbol to 
remind coming generations of the fearless spirit shown by 
him and other Boston and New England sons in the world 
war. 

I selected the performance and death of Private Perkins 
to make known to the reader early in my narrative the 
fibre of the men in the Twenty-sixth Division. Hundreds 
of others fought and died as bravely, even if their deeds 
were less spectacular, and right here I wish to pay homage 
to the thousands of Americans who went to soldier graves 
obscurely — to those whose gallantry and self-sacrifice and 
patriotism were dimmed only by the chaos of modern 
warfare. 

The concern and discussion — I might say tempest — 
occasioned by transfers of certain commanding officers in 
no way impaired the splendid record made by the Twenty- 
sixth Division in France. 

I read a secret report captured from the Germans among 
other documents which rated the Twenty-sixth as the fourth 
best storm division in the American Army. Such an 
appraisal by the enemy was interesting. 

I considered the Twenty-sixth one of the best assault 
divisions in the American Expeditionary Forces. I always 



PERKINS' REMARKABLE FEAT 13 

regarded division comparisons as troublesome and some- 
what unfair. They were apt to start discussion and cause 
resentment. 

Prisoners, guns, ammunition and the amount of ground 
captured provided tables to determine relative merit, but 
there were other elements to be considered, such as the 
type of enemy troops encountered, variance in topography, 
weather and the character of the operation, plus a liberal 
dose of personal opinion. 

I detected little, if any, difference in the endurance, 
patience, dash and courage of American soldiers, it mattered 
not what division they happened to be in. All they needed 
was the chance and sufficient front line experience to do their 
bit. There was a difference in staff work and in the effi- 
ciency of officers at times, but the rank and file of American 
troops were equally willing and tenacious and brave, 
whether they came from the North, South, East or West. 

They were all two-fisted Americans, eager to go where 
duty sent them and to shed their last drop of blood for 
Old Glory and democracy. That fact I am most 
anxious to emphasize. 

Military experts disagreed as to whether the First or 
the Second Division, the latter consisting of a brigade of 
Marines and a brigade of infantry, made up of the Ninth 
and Twenty-third Regiments, should top all other divisions 
in the American overseas army. I think they were both 
cracker jacks, as good as could be found in any army in the 
world, but I think the Second Division, because of the 
difficult and important task that it had thrust upon it in 
stopping the German push on Paris, shaded the First 
Division from a standpoint of accomplishment. The 
Third Division, also, had a fine record, though it was less 
in the limelight. 

While so-called regular organizations were cooler and 
steadier in action at the start, certain divisions formed of 
National Guard and draft units developed rapidly into crack 
shock troops. 



14 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

I would rate the Second Division ahead of all others, 
the First Division a close second in the list, the Twenty- 
sixth, or "Yankee Division," third, and the Forty-second, 
or "Rainbow Division," fourth. 

The "Rainbow Division" was made up of National 
Guard increments from all over the country. The Twenty- 
seventh Division, composed of National Guard organizations 
from New York state, the Thirtieth Division, made up of 
National Guardsmen from North and South Carolina and 
Tennessee, the Seventy-seventh, composed of New York 
draftees, the Thirty-second and others did splendid work. 

The Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth Divisions helped the 
British smash the Hindenburg line in the north, and the 
Seventy-seventh, in which was Major Whittlesey's "Lost 
Battalion," fought hard in the Argonne, but none of these 
had the type or length of service that the First, Second, 
Twenty-sixth and Forty-second Divisions had, and the 
Yankee Division had a longer front line service than any 
of them. 

I have been asked many times since my return how it 
was that the Marines got all the credit for the early opera- 
tions of the second battle of the Marne when the famous 
old Ninth and Twenty-third Infantry Regiments of the 
regular army did so much in that fight. 

Gensorship restrictions, prompted by military prudence 
and necessity, were the cause. Under the regulations, 
correspondents were not permitted to publish the identifi- 
cation or location of any regiment, and this rule deprived 
us of the chance to immortalize, in news dispatches at the 
time, the Ninth and Twenty-third Regiments for their 
wonderful work at the Marne. We were eager to tell the 
folks back home what they had accomplished, but to name 
a regiment would be furnishing information to the enemy. 

Use of the more general term "Marines" was forbidden 
on the first day of the battle, but after a conference, the 
correspondents were allowed to mention the Marines in 
their cables for a day or two and then the ban was placed up- 



PERKINS' REMARKABLE FEAT 15 

on the word again, but not until the "soldiers of the sea" 
had reaped a gale of publicity. And they did not get a 
syllable more than they deserved, the only regret being 
that the two infantry regiments making up the other 
brigade of the division could not, under military urgency, 
have been given their share also while the Marne operations 
were in progress. The Ninth and Twenty-third Regi- 
ments must and will get their just measure of credit in 
history. 

One of the heroes in the Marines was a man from home 
— Major Edward B. Cole of Brookline, brother of Brigadier- 
General Charles H. Cole of the Yankee Division. Major 
Cole commanded the Sixth Machine Gun Battalion. He 
led a gallant assault on a strong enemy machine gun 
position in Belleau Wood, June 10, 1918, and was fearfully 
wounded by a grenade that exploded almost in his face. 
Fortunately his eyes escaped, but his face was badly torn 
and fragments penetrated his legs and arms. 

He lost so much blood that transfusions were made 
from two members of his outfit in an effort to save his 
life. He died July 18. Although a member of another 
division, by his bravery he added to the glory of New 
England arms. He won a Croix de Guerre with a palm. 

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, in a letter to 
Director-General John Barrett of the Pan-American Union, 
rated the Yankee Division in the first four best American 
divisions. His letter read: 

"With the First and Second Regular Army Divisions 
and the Forty-second, or Rainbow Division, the Twenty- 
sixth is numbered, they being considered the first four 
veteran divisions of our great American Expeditionary 
Forces, and I would be glad to have the people of New 
England know that their division, the first of the National 
Guard troops to embark overseas, bore itself with distinction 
and gallantry, and that it contributed on every battlefield 
to America's real participation in the fighting and the 
unbroken success of our arms." 



16 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

On Feb. 2, 1919, the day on which Secretary Baker wrote 
to Director-General Barrett, General Pershing cabled to 
Mr. Barrett as follows: 

"Replying to your cablegram, it gives me pleasure to send you 
a message about Vermont and New England troops. Briefly 
stated, they merit the warmest praise by the people they represent. 
They have maintained the best traditions of their New England 
ancestors, and the spirit of '76 has been theirs. They have played 
their full part in the splendid achievement of American arms on 
the battlefield and in the supporting services." 

As a citizen of Boston and a fully accredited war corre- 
spondent attached to both the American and the British 
Armies, with opportunity to see the men of the Twenty- 
sixth in every battle and to compare them not only with 
every other American combat division but with every type 
of allied troops on the Western front, I was thrilled by an 
ever-increasing pride in our home troops. 

THE YANKEE DIVISION MADE GOOD. 

Kindly stamp that deep in your memory. 

It equalled and surpassed the expectations of the folks 
at home. 

It upheld New England traditions, the standards of 
which are the very highest, which is about as big and fine 
a tribute as one could pay it. 



CHAPTER II. 
Dilboy's Dying Shots 

BThe Twenty-sixth was the first American division 
organized as a division in the United States and 
transported complete to France. The units from 
the regular army which went over earlier with 
General Pershing were organized on the other side of the 
water. 

The Twenty-sixth Division was the first made up of 
National Guard organizations to leave the United States 
and the first National Guard division in history to set foot 
on European soil. 

It participated in the first two battles in which Americans 
were engaged without the support of French infantry. 

It was the first American unit to occupy a division front, 
assuming that responsibility when it relieved the First 
Division on the Toul sector on Easter Sunday morning, in 
1918. Instead of the five kilometers that had been held by 
the First Division, the Yankee Division guarded fifteen 
kilometers. Prior to that American divisions had been 
holding brigade fronts only. 

A regiment of the Yankee Division — the 104th Infantry, 
an all-Massachusetts regiment — was the first in the history 
of the United States Army to have its colors decorated by 
a foreign government when the French thus honored its flag. 

A captured confidential document of the Nineteenth 
German Army reads: 

"THE TWENTY-SIXTH AMERICAN DIVISION IS A 
FIGHTING DIVISION WHICH HAS PROVEN ITS QUALI- 
TIES IN BATTLES ON VARIOUS PARTS OF THE FRONT." 

17 



18 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Incidentally the best judges of a division are enemy com- 
manders. In divers ways and on divers occasions the Ger- 
mans showed a marked respect for the aggressiveness of the 
men from home. 

The first enlisted man in the American land forces 
awarded a Medal of Honor was First Class Private George 
Dilboy, a Boston lad, son of Antone Dilboy of the Massa- 
chusetts General Hospital, and a member of H Company of 
the 103d Infantry of the Yankee Division. 

Dilboy, like Private Perkins, mentioned in the opening 
chapter, died of wounds after performing his valorous act. 

The citation that went with the medal to his father 
stated that Dilboy had exhibited "conspicuous gallantry 
and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty" in a 
fight near Belleau, July 18, 1918. The citation adds: 

"After his platoon had gained its objective along a railroad 
embankment, Private Dilboy, accompanying his platoon leader 
to reconnoiter the ground beyond, was suddenly fired upon by an 
enemy machine gun from 100 yards. From a standing position 
on the railroad track, fully exposed to view, Dilboy opened fire at 
once, but failing to silence the gun, rushed forward, with his 
bayonet fixed, through a wheat field towards the gun emplacement, 
falling within twenty-five yards of the gun, his right leg nearly 
severed above the knee and with several bullet wounds in his 
body. With undaunted courage, he continued to fire into the 
emplacement from a prone position, killing two of the enemy and 
dispersing the rest of the crew." 

Think of having the nerve so accurately to aim that he 
killed two Germans and silenced a machine gun, with his 
body riddled and bleeding and a leg hanging by a shred! 
Think of doing this as he was dying! That is American 
sand for you. 

In a general order, dated March 8, 1919, Major-General 
Harry C. Hale, commanding the Yankee Division, wrote: 

"The division commander is pleased to announce the award 
by the President, in the name of Congress, of Medals of Honor 
to the following named enlisted men for acts of gallantry and 
intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, performed in action 



DILBOTS DYING SHOTS 19 

against the enemy, while members of this command: Private, 
First Class, George Dilboy (deceased), Company H, 103d In- 
fantry (Medal awarded Dec. 5, 1918) ... and Private, First 
Class, Michael J. Perkins (deceased), Company D, 101st In- 
fantry (Medal awarded Feb. 20, 1919). . . . 

"Such acts as these are rare indeed, and it is to be regretted 
that both these soldiers lost their lives as a result of their extreme 
courage and fearlessness. Their deeds will stand recorded in the 
annals of this division and will remain in the memories of its 
officers and men as true examples of the highest spirit of patriotism 
and self-sacrifice." 

Do you wonder that we who saw such patriots maimed 
or dead on ground or litters are eager to sing their praises? 

The American doughboy was the greatest figure in the 
world war. 

His pluck and his patience and his dash (Marshal Foch 
laid stress on the latter quality when we American corre- 
spondents interviewed him in his private train at Treves) 
were sources of constant surprise to the allied leaders. 

Without desiring to draw offensive parallels, or to de- 
tract in the slightest degree from the fine record made by 
our colleagues in arms, it might be pardonable here to state 
that the position of the doughboy was different, psychologi- 
cally, geographically and sentimentally, from that of the 
privates in any of the allied armies. 

The Poilu, than whom no craftier or braver soldier lives, 
was fighting to save his home and his women and children. 
England and Italy were menaced, but the American dough- 
boy went 3000 miles and more to battle for a principle in a 
foreign land. 

His home and dear ones were in no immediate peril. He 
could not hurry home to see his relatives or friends even if 
he procured a furlough, which was seldom, if ever. The 
Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians and other colonists 
in the French and British Armies were similarly handi- 
capped, but none of them made greater sacrifices or put up 
with more than did the fellows from home. 



20 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

You thought of these things when soldiers like Perkins 
and Dilboy fell. Often your intimate friends were among 
them. Frequently as I passed a body in woods or field or 
by the road, or doubled up in a trench or "fox hole," I 
thought of the mother. I wondered who she was and where 
she lived and if she was thinking of her son at that moment. 

I wondered how she would feel if she stood beside me and 
viewed the broken body of her boy in all that tumult 
and desolation. I thought of the shock that the telegram 
from the War Department would occasion, and of the name 
in the list in the home newspaper. 

Right here permit me to say that many a lad died as 
gallantly over there as did those who received special honors 
and who would have had his name inscribed on the honor 
roll if the confusion of battle had not obliterated details of 
his action and sacrifice. Citations and medals do not find 
all the heroes. Let this, if it may, be a source of comfort to 
those whose soldier relative died in obscurity. 

Our fellows always looked so pathetically far away from 
all the ties that they held dear, so woefully isolated when 
struck down. Your heart went out to them — the dead and 
the wounded. The latter were so patient and stoical. 
That was the thing that impressed the doctors and nurses. 
They agreed that the American soldier was even gamer than 
they had expected. 

You saw sick and wounded in hospitals who knew they 
must die and who were in pain, but they never whimpered. 
I saw a chap with the whole of his lower jaw shot away by a 
shell fragment and his tongue was hanging, and he had the 
grit to gurgle to the attending surgeon that he would smile 
if he had "enough mouth left." 

Between battles you made the acquaintance of wounded 
who looked for you to hear the news. They used to re- 
mark now and then that the hardest thing of all was to die 
without seeing those at home. I recall a lieutenant, a 
handsome chap, with pathetic brown eyes, whom I first met 
back at Camp Devens. He recognized me as I passed the 



DILBOTS DYING SHOTS 21 

rows of beds in an evacuation hospital one afternoon. He 
had been gassed and the poison had got into his blood and 
developed fatal complications. 

I chatted at his bedside whenever I passed that way and 
I saw him fade. The last day we talked he told me that he 
would give worlds to kiss his mother and would die happy 
with her blessing. I saw him buried without that privilege. 

Fighting and facing bullets and bursting shells and 
poisonous vapor clouds were not the only hardships of the 
war. The tragedy behind the scenes — the personal ele- 
ment — was one of the saddest features. 

That was why it was so gratifying to stuff your pockets 
with cigarettes and matches and help appease the ever- 
lasting craving of the carried and walking wounded for a 
smoke as they were headed for the dressing stations. 

The smile or sigh of satisfaction was a reward that 
effaced a week's war fag when a doughboy, uniform stained 
red by a bayonet or bullet wound, muttered thanks be- 
tween puffs. At the "non- transportable" hospitals — named 
because only the desperately wounded were treated there 
— those too serious to be carried far behind the lines — 
I have seen patients enjoy a cigarette almost up to the 
moment of death. 

A youngster in his last gasp whispered to a surgeon: 

"Say, Doc, I know I'm done for. Nobody has to tell 
me. Do you think I made good? I did my best, Doc." 

The surgeon said: 

"The spirit of that kid got me. The only thing that 
bothered him was whether he had done as well as was ex- 
pected. He had left high school to do his bit. He had run 
away from home. We buried him that afternoon near the 
old church with a shell-hole in its spire." 

I had seen that American cemetery grow in a span of 
days from a dozen to several hundred graves. 

The knights of old had nothing on the doughboy. He 
was continually surprising commanding officers and bunkies 
on the field of battle and often surprised himself. Young- 



22 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

sters who had never had a chance to test what was in them 
developed into regimental heroes over night. 

I saw them go "over the top," a term used after the 
fighting became open, as it was during the more stereotyped 
trench warfare, untried material, eyes straight ahead, chins 
up, jaws set, every line in face and frame showing by the 
tenseness that they appreciated the danger, but not a quitter 
among them — the sons of Jews and the sons of Christians, 
the sons of Greeks, Armenians, Poles, Swedes, Italians, 
Scotch, Irish, English, American, yes and the sons of Ger- 
mans — a crushing dynamo of sinew and courage, one of the 
greatest armies of crusaders in the world's history. In 
justice to the lads of German strain, let it be said that they 
fought as gallantly against the common foe as any others. 

Such was the human timber of the Yankee Division and 
every other division in the American overseas army. 



CHAPTER III. 
In Front Line 210 Days 

BNow for a few facts and figures about the Yan- 
kee Division. 
Its total casualties in battle were 11,955. Of 
this number 421 were officers and 11,534 enlisted 
men. The number killed was 1730. 

It served seven months in the front line, or an aggregate 
of 210 days. 

In nine months of service, beginning Feb. 6, 1918, the 
Yankee Division spent only ten days in a rest area. 

The Twenty-sixth Division was organized in Boston, on 
August 22, 1917, from units of National Guard troops of the 
New England States and increments from the Seventy-sixth 
Division of the National Army which were trained at Camp 
Devens, Ayer, Massachusetts. 

The Seventy-sixth Division was a promising outfit when 
I left Camp Devens to go abroad. I had seen it developed 
from the raw material into a first class division, under 
Major-General Harry Hodges. 

It was a typically New England division in its original 
makeup, with lads of pure Yankee stock in large numbers. 
But big quotas were constantly sliced from it and sent to 
other cantonments, crippling it, and eventually it became 
a replacement outfit. The next I heard of the Seventy- 
sixth Division was that it had gone over in July, 1918, and 
had been converted into a depot division back in the 
S. O. S. (service of supplies.) 

I thought that the Seventy-sixth would have made a 
reputation as a combat division if it had been sent over in- 
tact, as it was when General Hodges had command. I met 

23 



24 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

artillery units from the Seventy-sixth with the Army of 
Occupation in Germany and others served with credit with 
combat divisions in the final months of fighting, but the 
pity was that it was never primed and used as a fighting ma- 
chine. It would have aided the Twenty-sixth in adding 
lustre to the military history of New England. 

I met officers and men of the Seventy-sixth Division in 
Belgium, France and Germany. I met Major-General 
Weigel commanding a division the day King George re- 
viewed American troops in Belgium. General Weigel had 
commanded the depot brigade at Camp Devens as 
brigadier-general. I ran across Lieutenant-Colonel J. M. 
Wainwright, one of the best known cavalry experts in the 
country, at the front, and, later, filling an important berth 
with the Army of Occupation. He had been a major on the 
staff of General Hodges at Camp Devens. 

Everybody in the Yankee Division regretted that Brig- 
adier-General E. Leroy Sweetser was not with it, because 
there wasn't a better soldier in New England. He commanded 
the Bay State infantry brigade on the Mexican border and 
was loved by officers and men. He was commanding a 
crack brigade in a Southern camp and was just about to sail 
when the armistice was declared. 

To return to the Yankee Division. It was thrice cited in 
orders issued by General Headquarters of the American Expe- 
ditionary Forces. It had a citation from the French Army, a 
citation in orders from the American Army Corps, four cita- 
tions in orders from the French Army Corps and ten com- 
mendations for gallantry in French service memorandums. 

It captured 3140 prisoners, of which sixty-one were 
German officers and 3087 enlisted men. The captures by 
sectors were: North of Toul, six officers, forty-three privates; 
northwest of Chateau Thierry, two officers, 244 privates; 
north of St. Mihiel, forty-eight officers, 2520 privates; 
north of Verdun, five officers and 280 privates. 

In its Chateau Thierry operations, July 18-25, the 
Yankee Division captured one large cannon, three of lighter 



IN FRONT LINE 210 DAYS 25 

calibre, seven trench mortars and twenty-three machine 
guns. In the St. Mihiel drive, Sept. 12-13, it captured 
two large pieces of artillery, ten of lighter calibre, eight 
trench mortars, 109 machine guns and forty-two rifles. 

In all, it captured thirty-seven kilometers of ground 
from the Germans, as follows: Chateau Thierry, July 18- 
25, gained seventeen and five-tenths kilometers; St. Mihiel 
salient, Sept. 12-13, gained fourteen kilometers; north of 
Verdun, Oct. 11-Nov. 11, gained five and five-tenths kilo- 
meters, showing how slow was the progress and the desperate 
character of the country fought over in the closing days of 
the war. 

The division table of casualties: 





Officers 


Men 


Total 


Killed 


78 


1652 


1730 


Wounded severely 


100 


3524 


3624 


Wounded slightly 


111 


2708 


2819 


Gassed 


113 


3250 


3363 


Missing 


10 


273 


283 


Men taken prisoners 


9 


127 


136 



Totals 421 11,534 11,955 

It took part in the following battles: 

Bois Brule April 10-13, 1918. 

Seicheprey April 20-21, 1918. 

Humbert Plantation May 27, 1918. 

Xivray-Marvoisin June 16, 1918. 

Chateau Thierry July 18-25, 1918. 

St. Mihiel Sept. 12-13, 1918. 

Meuse-Argonne Oct. 17-Nov.ll,1918. 

The detailed operations of the Yankee Division in the 
St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne fighting are given in the fol- 
lowing order received at Division Headquarters at Ec- 
comoy: 



26 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

HEADQUARTERS FIRST ARMY, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, FRANCE. 

ADVANCE COPY. January 22, 1919. 

GENERAL ORDERS 

No. 2. 

"Pursuant to telegraphic instructions from G. H. Q., the 
Twenty-sixth Division, upon the establishment of its headquarters 
in the Le Mans area, is relieved from duty with this army. 

"The Twenty-sixth Division, joining early in August, 1918, 
participated in the following operations of the First Army : 

ST. MIHIEL OPERATION. 

"The division attacked on the front south of Les Eparges on 
Sept. 12th, driving the enemy from St. Remy and Dommartin on 
this date and reaching Vigneulles early on the 13th inst. It then 
turned east and occupied and held the line of heights about 
Hannonville-Thillot, with advance detachments near Doncourt, 
until Oct. 7-8. 

MEUSE-ARGONNE OPERATION 

"The division joined the French Seventeenth Corps east of 
Verdun on Oct. 17th and took over the Neptune sector. The 
division held this sector until the signing of the armistice on 
Nov. 11, 1918. During this period the division engaged in the 
following local attacks, in addition to defensive engagements in- 
cident to holding this sector: 

"Oct. 23 — Against ridge between Cote 361 and 346. 

"Oct. 24 and Oct. 27 — Against Bois d'Ormont and Belleau 
Bois. 

"Nov. 9 — Against Ville-devant-Chaumont, Herbebois, Bois la 
Ville and La Chaume. 

"The army commander takes this occasion to express his 
appreciation of the services of this division while a part of the 
combat forces of this army, and wishes it Godspeed upon the final 
phase of its participation in the activities of the American Ex- 
peditionary Forces. 

"By command of Lieutenant-General Liggett: 

"H. A. DRUM, 
OFFICIAL : "Chief of Staff." 

H. F. LOUGHRY 

Adjutant General. 



IN FRONT LINE 210 DAYS 27 

The Yankee Division trained in scattered units at the 
following camps: 

Div. Hdqtrs. and Hdqtrs. Troop Boston. 

101st Field Signal Battalion Boston. 

Hdqtrs. Fifty-first Infantry Brigade Framingham. 

101st Infantry Framingham. 

102d Infantry New Haven, Ct. 

102d Machine Gun Battalion Framingham. 

Hdqtrs. Fifty-second Infantry Brigade.. .Westfield, Mass. 

103d Infantry Westfield. 

104th Infantry Westfield. 

The first units of the Yankee Division sailed from Ho- 
boken, N. J., on Sept. 7, 1917, and landed in St. Nazaire, 
France, on Sept. 21, 1917. The division remained in the 
training area, with headquarters in Neufchateau, about 
four months, during which period details of troops were 
engaged in constructing hospitals, building telephone lines, 
serving as labor detachments, aided in organizing sections 
in the service of supplies and otherwise shared in prepara- 
tion for the main army, which began to arrive after Jan. 1, 
1918. 

The division entered the front line in the Chemin-des- 
Dames sector Feb. 6, 1918, and was brigaded with the 
French, north of Soissons. It remained there until 
March 21. On April 3 it entered "La Reine and 
Boucq sector," north of Toul, and remained in the 
front line, holding the first divisional front in the American 
Army, until June 28. 

On July 10 it entered the "Pas Fini sector," north of 
Chateau Thierry, which it held until July 25. On Sept. 8 
it entered the "Rupt and Troyon sector," in the St. Mihiel 
salient, holding it until Oct. 8, and on Oct. 18 entered the 
"Neptune sector," north of Verdun, and held it until Nov. 
14, three days after the armistice, when by easy stages it 
advanced to the rest area in Montigny le Roi, which it left 
for the Le Mans embarkation area late in January. 



28 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

A foot note attached to the table of time spent in the 
various sectors says: 

"The dates of entry and withdrawal are the dates on which 
the command passed to or from the Twenty-sixth Division. This 
table does not in reality show the exact time which all units of 
this division served in line. There were several instances where 
regiments and brigades entered the line several days in advance of 
the passing of command to the division. Also, during the nine 
months' service from Feb. 6, 1918, the Twenty-sixth Division 
spent only ten days in a rest area (just prior to the battle of St. 
Mihiel), the balance of the time being consumed in moving from 
one sector to another, or in support position awaiting entry into 
line." 

The following localities were occupied by the Yankee 
Division while in the front line: 

CHEMIN-DES-DAMES SECTOR— Chemin-des-Dames, 
Fort de Marmaison, Chavignon Valley, Laffaux Valley, 
Pinon Woods, Cheval Mort Hill, Aisne River, Rouge 
Maison Cave. 

LA REINE AND BOUCQ SECTOR— Montsec, the 
German artillery there will be long remembered, Bois Brule 
(Apremont Woods), Seicheprey, including Remierre and 
Jury Woods, Xivray-Marvoisin and Dead Man's Curve. 

CHATEAU THIERRY SECTOR— Bois Belleau, Hill 
190, Bouresches Railway Station, Trugny Woods, Epieds, 
Vesle River (Artillery Brigade) and Vaux. 

ST. MIHIEL SECTOR— Les Eparges, Vigneulle, Hat- 
tonchatel, Dommartin and Bois de St. Remy. 

MEUSE-ARGONNE SECTOR— Bois Belieu, Hill 360, 
Bois d'Ormont, Bois d'Haumont, Bois d'Etrayes, Les 
Houppy Bois, La Wavrille, Bois de Ville-devant-Chaumont 
and Cote de Talou. 

A tough old list which the survivors of the Yankee 
Division had burned into their memories. 

This table is interesting as it shows the dates of detailed 
division movements: 



IN FRONT LINE 210 DAYS 



29 



Locations. 


Department. 


Arrival. 


Neuf chateau, 


Vosges, 


Oct. 31, 1917 


Couvrelles, 


Aisne, 


Feb. 8, 1918. 


Bar-sur-Aube, 


Aube, 


March 18. 


Joinville, 


Haute-Marne, 


March 25. 


Reynel, 


Haute-Marne, 


March 27. 


Boucq, 


Meurthe-et-Moselle, 


March 31. 


Trondes, 


Meurthe-et-Moselle, 


June 20. 


Toul, 


Meurthe-et-Moselle, 


June 28. 


Nanteuil-les Meaux, Seine-et-Marne, 


June 29. 


Chamigny, 


Seine-et-Marne, 


July 9. 


Genevrois Farm, 


Aisne, 


July 10. 


Mery-sur-Marne, 


Seine-et-Marne, 


July 15. 


Genevrois Farm, 


Aisne, 


July 20. 


Lucy-le-Bocage, 


Aisne, 


July 21. 


Grand Ru Farm, 


Aisne, 


July 21. 


Mery-sur-Marne, 


Seine-et-Marne, 


July 30. 


Mussy-sur-Seine, 


Aube, 


August 16. 


Bar-le-Duc, 


Meuse, 


August 29. 


Sommedieus, 


Meuse, 


August 30. 


Rupt-en-Woevre, 


Meuse, 


Sept. 6. 


Troyon-sur-Meuse, 


Meuse, 


Sept. 16. 


Verdun, 


Meuse, 


Oct. 8. 


Bras, 


Meuse, 


Oct. 18. 


Pierrefitte, 


Meuse, 


Nov. 14. 


Benoite-Vaux, 


Meuse, 


Nov. 15. 


Frebecourt, 


Vosges, 


Nov. 19. 


Montigny-le-Roi, 


Haute-Marne, 


Nov. 23. 



CHAPTER IV. 

America's Greatest Battle 

BThe Yankee Division never planned a retreat. 
Guns and rolling stock always faced the enemy, 
prepared to advance. 

Nothing was ever pointed toward the rear, 
as an emergency measure, because the fighting division from 
New England always held its ground, it mattered not what 
were the obstacles or the odds or the skill of the forces 
opposing. 

Even the cream of German shock troops, exercising the 
maximum of force and cunning gained by long experience, 
could not budge the men of the Yankee Division, vent their 
fury and hammer as they may. 

But it took men, brave men, to fight so gallantly. Losses 
were heavy at times, especially in the treacherous hills north 
of Verdun in the last weeks of fighting, when one enemy 
system of defence after another had to be smashed. 

At this stage open warfare had developed into a violent 
duel of artillery and machine guns, with the latter predomi- 
nating. The beaten Germans pinned their last hopes on 
the machine guns, which accounted for the enormous num- 
ber employed on every enemy front. 

There was speculation and gossip and not a little criti- 
cism in Paris and elsewhere while the Americans were chop- 
ping their way through the Meuse-Argonne sector. Critics 
wondered why greater progress was not being made, but it 
was the chatter of those unversed, the idle gossip of those 
ignorant of the desperate task assigned the Yanks, and of 
the wretched topography of that region where each in the 
series of wooded hills formed a natural fortification for the 
Boches. 

30 



AMERICA'S GREATEST BATTLE 31 

These croakers did not know that the Americans had 
been assigned the toughest section of the entire Western 
front. They did not know that the Germans considered 
the Meuse-Argonne front the pivot of the closing operations 
of the war, in that the penetration of the elaborate enemy 
defence system in that region would menace the main rail- 
road artery over which the Germans transported practically 
all of their troops and supplies in France, and would cut off 
and trap the German forces in the north. 

So while retreating before the powerful blows of the 
Belgians, French and British, the Germans massed their 
best troops against the Americans in a desperate effort to 
check an advance that was as inevitable as was the igno- 
minious defeat that came with the armistice. 

Division after division was hurled against the Americans, 
who crushed them with the slow, ponderous advance of a 
steam-roller. The operations in the Meuse-Argonne con- 
stituted the greatest battle ever fought by an American 
army. There were nearly 800,000 Yanks engaged and 
the losses totalled 115,000, but were not out of proportion 
to the task accomplished. 

Captain Arthur E. Hartzell, who served in the front 
line with an infantry regiment before joining the Press 
Section of the American Expeditionary Forces, has written 
an able monograph of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, which 
was the decisive battle of the war. Captain Hartzell has col- 
lected statistics which are instructive and illuminating. 
Here are a few of the figures: 

Duration of battle 47 days. 

Forces engaged 631,405 Americans. 

138,000 French. 



Total 769,405 against 607,212 Germans. 

( 22 American. 

Divisions engaged < 4 French. 

( 46 German. 
Maximum penetration of 

enemy lines 54 kilometers. 



32 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Territory liberated for France 1,550 square kilometers. 

Villages liberated 150. 

Total number of guns which 

began the attack 2,775. 

Artillery ammunition fired . . . 89,404 (plus) average rounds per 

day. 
Largest amount artillery am- 
munition fired single day.. 313,087 rounds (Sept. 26). 
Total artillery ammunition 

used 4,202,006 rounds. 

Prisoners captured 316 officers, 15,743 men. 

Material captured 468 guns of large calibre, 2,864 

machine guns, 177 trench mor- 
tars. 

American casualties 15,599 killed. 

8,805 missing. 
69,832 wounded. 
18,664 gassed. 
2,629 shell shocked. 

Total... 115,529 

French casualties 7,000 estimated total 

American and French casual- 
ties 122,529. 

German estimated casualties 

(including 16,000 prisoners) 126,500. 
Total casualties in A.E.F. up 

to Nov. 18, 1918 53,169 killed. 

179,625 wounded. 
11,660 missing. 
2,163 prisoners. 

Total 246,657 

Total prisoners captured by 

A.E.F. all operations 637 officers, 42,650 enlisted men. 

Total material captured by 

A.E.F 1,421 guns, 6,550 machine guns, 

503 trench mortars. 

Defence after defence crumbled. The Americans were 
compelled to storm fortified hills by frontal attacks against 
terrible artillery and machine gun fire. No writer, no nor 
can any camera convey to the folks at home the difficulties 



AMERICA'S GREATEST BATTLE 33 

and horrors of the country over which the Americans fought 
in the last weeks of the war. The Americans had to fight 
for every inch of ground. 

A kilometer won on that front was equal to five on other 
fronts. After the most gruelling fighting night and day in 
almost constant rain and in a temperature that penetrated 
to the marrow, after herculean patience and effort, American 
pluck and tenacity triumphed. 

Every American in France was thrilled the Saturday 
night before the armistice to hear that the Germans had 
finally broken and fled, fled so fast that our front line troops 
were sent in pursuit of them in motor trucks. It was the 
first motor truck charge of the war, and our fellows had 
difficulty even in trucks to keep up with the retreating enemy. 

And right in the midst of this terrible region fought the 
men of the Yankee Division, steadily advancing over as 
difficult a terrain as confronted any American division, 
fought until they almost fell from exhaustion, because it 
was a division slogan to carry out every task assigned, no 
matter what the cost. 

The wonder was that losses were not greater. With 
thinned ranks filled by replacements, the Yankee Division 
strength on Jan. 9, 1919, was 26,540. But of those who 
went over with the original division, owing to casualties and 
transfers, only 57.2 per cent of the enlisted men came 
home and 37 J^ per cent of the officers. 

The losses in the infantry were the heaviest, the machine 
gun battalions came second and the artillery third. About 
48 per cent of the original infantrymen in the division, 
about 65 per cent of the machine gunners and about 70 per 
cent of the artillery men remained. 

These figures are approximately correct. Roughly 
estimated, a little better than 50 per cent of the men who 
left the United States with the Yankee Division had the joy 
of returning home with it, bearing in mind that the 
difference included those transferred to other units and 
those in hospitals. 



34 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

If anybody tries to argue that Uncle Sam was too late 
and that what he did overseas was relatively unimportant, 
tell him he doesn't know what he is talking about. Every- 
body knows, or ought to know, that the financial and the 
moral support of the United States were of tremendous 
value to the allies before we struck a blow. 

When the Yanks did strike the enemy line, they hit it so 
hard that it counted. They struck when they were most 
needed — at the crucial hour. Not a day could have been 
lost. The initial American blows changed the complexion 
of the war over night. They bucked up the shattered 
morale of the allies. They instilled new pep and courage. 
The Americans were Johnny-on-the-spot. Don't let any- 
body tell you otherwise. The allied leaders know it. 

And while the real turn of the tide came at the second 
battle of the Marne, when the American Second Division 
stopped the German drive on Paris dead in its tracks, a 
minor operation successfully carried out earlier by the First 
Division forecasted the change in Germany's fortunes of war. 

The First Division was brigaded with the French on the 
Montdidier front. Its commander decided to take Can- 
tigny, a ruined village on a plateau, the capture of which 
would straighten the American line. 

Allied observers said it would not be difficult to take 
Cantigny, but that the problem would be to hold it in the 
face of the unusual enemy artillery and machine gun con- 
centration. Cantigny could scarcely be called a battle. It 
was nothing but a rush, following hours of intensive artillery 
preparation by American and French batteries. Scarcely 
a shot was fired by the Germans until our men had reached 
the ruins. It was not until the Yanks were establishing 
their outposts beyond the village that they suffered any 
great losses, when the Boche machine guns opened on them. 

It was doubted that troops so inexperienced could hold 
their ground under such adverse conditions, but the First 
Division units did, despite a series of bitter counter-attacks. 
Cantigny proved an eye-opener to the Allies as well as to the 



AMERICA'S GREATEST BATTLE 35 

Germans. It showed that the Yanks had the battle grip, 
and the more spectacular and important fighting on the 
Marne soon after gave further proof of American tenacity. 

Those of us who lived through the dark days of Spring, 
1918, when nights were made hideous by repeated air raids, 
when the German horde was advancing toward Paris in 
leaps and bounds, and when the big gun sent thousands 
scampering from the city, know how shaky was the Allied 
confidence and how timely the arrival of the American 
forces into the breach. 

No one country can be given credit for winning the war. 
They all contributed. Great Britain did wonders with her 
navy. France held the line unwaveringly for four years. 
Italy did her share, and Russia had been a powerful factor 
until weakened by internal corruption and treachery. They 
all made their sacrifices, and did their bit. The way it looked 
to me, at close range, was that Uncle Sam jumped in like a 
football player with a reputation — a player big, strong, 
fresh and confident — at the critical period and pushed the 
ball over. 

The Allies might have done it without us, but it would 
have taken an awfully long time, and the Germans were 
getting perilously close to Paris and the French troops 
which our Marines and Ninth and Twenty-third Infantry 
Regiments leap-frogged at the Marne were exhausted and 
disheartened after days and nights of continuous fighting 
against overpowering odds. 

The French showed that they had the greatest staff 
officers in the world. Foch and his colleagues outma- 
noeuvred the Germans at their own game. But Foch and 
the British commanders would not have dared to attempt 
the final strategy with such fearlessness if they did not have 
the confidence that came from the realization that back of 
the French and British armies, in the event of reverses, 
stood more than 2,000,000 Americans, young, fresh and eager. 

That American line was the mainstay, green and in- 
experienced as it may have been, compared with the vet- 



36 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

erans of Europe, and that mighty reserve of Americans 
turned the trick. History must so record it. 

It is absurd to say that the Germans were not good 
fighters. The character and the length of the war belie such 
an assertion, as does the fact that at the close of more than 
four years they were still deep in allied territory, with the 
weight of the world against them. 

The German armies were wonderfully trained and disci- 
plined. Officers were high grade and efficient. They were 
proud almost to the point of arrogance and defiant after 
capture. The rank and file of German troops knew the art 
of war and they had plenty of spirit. In mass formation 
German troops were superb and always dangerous. 

I saw German machine gunners, lads of seventeen and 
eighteen, dead beside their guns in fox-holes. They had 
fired until they got the bayonet. The ground in front of 
them was strewn with their victims. 

They were "sacrifice" men, screening a retreat. They 
knew they didn't have a chance when assigned to those 
isolated positions, but they fought until the last gasp. In 
the final battles the German machine gunners shouldered 
the lion's share of the work. They were picked and gallant 
soldiers. 

It was not until the Americans entered the fight and 
the warfare became open that the German spirit began to 
wane. Then the infantry showed a tendency to surrender 
if cut off from the main forces or lacking officers, often to 
smaller units instead of fighting to the last ditch like the 
Americans. 

But even in the last weeks and days, with the hand- 
writing written bold on the wall, the Germans gave the 
Americans their best in the Argonne. The Yanks had to 
fight and fight desperately all the way. Just tell any 
American who was in the closing battle that the Germans 
were "easy" and see what he says. The Germans realized 
that the allies at last had the whip hand, that they had 
builded a war machine mightier than their own. They 



AMERICA'S GREATEST BATTLE 37 

realized that the jig was up and their confidence cracked. 
But beaten, they showed their fangs. 

The Twenty-sixth Division reaped its share of individual 
and regimental decorations and citations. As I have pre- 
viously stated, the 104th Infantry was the first American 
regiment to have its colors decorated by the French or any 
foreign government. The first Medal of Honor awarded to 
an enlisted man in the American land forces went to First 
Class Private George Dilboy of H Company, 103rd Infantry, 
who died of wounds. 

The first battalion of the 102d Infantry had its colors 
decorated with a Croix de Guerre by General Petain. 

Often more men are recommended for decorations than 
receive them, leaving many who performed acts of bravery 
which might have fallen short of the standard necessary for 
medals without any record of their deeds. 

To bridge this void, Major-General Clarence R. Edwards, 
the original commander of the Yankee Division, intro- 
duced a departure in the form of a division citation of record 
entitled "THE YANKEE DIVISION— DISCIPLINE 
AND STOUT HEARTS." 

Dr. Morton Prince of Boston, the "soldiers' friend," 
whose nephew was killed while flying for France, paid for 
the printing of these certificates. 

I am informed that there were close to 2,500 citations re- 
corded in the Yankee Division, including decorations such 
as Medals of Honor, Distinguished Service Crosses and 
Croix de Guerre. Although the acts that inspired these 
honors are worthy of publishing in detail, space will not per- 
mit. There are enough of them to fill a thick volume alone. 

The division was cited in American and French orders 
and commended in letters and service memorandums, as 
follows : 

Cited in G. O. No. 7, Hq. Eleventh Army Corps (French), 
March 15, 1918. 

Cited (104th Inf.) in G. O. No. 737 A, Hq. Thirty- 
second Army Corps (French), April 26, 1918. 



38 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Commended (101st Inf.) in Service Memorandum. Hq. 
Eighth Army (French), June 8, 1918. 

Commended in Service Memorandum, Hq. Seventh 
Army (French), June 17, 1918. 

Congratulated in Memorandum, Hq. Thirty-second 
Army Corps (French), June 18, 1918. 

Cited in G. O. No. 131, Hq. Thirty-second Army Corps 
(French), June 18, 1918. 

Commended (103d Inf.) in letter from G. H. Q., A. E. F., 
June 20, 1918. 

Cited in G. O. No. 133, Hq. Thirty-second Army Corps 
(French), June 27, 1918. 

Congratulated in letter, Hq. Sixth Army (French), 
July 29, 1918. 

Cited in G. O., Sixth Army (French), August 9, 1918. 

Cited in G. O., G. H. Q., A. E. F., August 28, 1918. 

Cited (102d Inf.) in G. O. No. 19, Hq. Fifth Army Corps 
A. E. F., September 18, 1918. 

Commended in letter from Hq. Second Colonial Corps 
(French), October 3, 1918. 

Commended in letter from Hq. Second Colonial Corps 
(French), October 7, 1918. 

Commended in letter from Hq. Seventeenth Army 
Corps (French), October 24, 1918. 

Commended (104th Inf.) in letter from Hq. Eighteenth 
Division (French), November 17, 1918. 

Commended in letter from Hq. Second Colonial Corps 
(French), November 14, 1918. 

Cited in G. O. No. 232, G. H. Q., A. E. F., December 19, 
1918. 

Cited in G. P. No. 238, G. H. Q., A. E. F., December 26, 
1918. 

Cited in G. O. No. 2, Hq. First American, January 
22, 1919. 



CHAPTER V. 

Speaking of "Yanks" 

BEveey time I write or see the term "Yanks" I am 
reminded of a friendly discussion which I heard in 
a cafe in Meaux between two young Southern 
officers, just after the Americans had stopped the 
German push toward Paris. 

"I don't like the name 'Yanks' and I don't give a damn 
who knows it!" exclaimed a captain of infantry, putting 
aside the Paris edition of an American newspaper, a headline 
in which had caused his outburst. "I don't think it's fair 
to the fellows who came from south of the Mason and Dixon 
line." 

"But there isn't any Mason and Dixon line any more, 
friend," drawled a lieutenant of artillery, of less fiery tem- 
perament. 

"Perhaps not politically or patriotically, but there is 
sentimentally, and always will be, unless I miss my guess," 
replied the first speaker with spirit. "I came from an old 
family in Virginia. I have an aunt who wrote the other day 
and asked me what the boys from the South were doing over 
here. 

"She said all she read about in the newspapers and maga- 
zines and on bill posters was Yanks, Yanks, Yanks! Now 
I'm no scold or grumbler and I am willing to give the 
Northerners their due, but the love of the Southland is 
strong in me. My uncle and dad were in the Confederate 
ranks, and I wish they'd find some other name for our army 
over here." 

"When it comes to that, neighbor," said the artillery 
officer, "I'm somewhat of a Southerner myself. Hail from 
South Carolina, but I don't object to the term Yanks, be- 

39 



40 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

cause as I figure it, it means just plain American and that's 
what every Tom, Dick and Harry of us in the A. E. F. is — 
American. 

"What's more, I read in a newspaper that writers had 
wracked their brains to coin a title with a punch. First 
there was the name 'Sammies,' which had about as much 
strength as a bit of soggy gingerbread, and some others that I 
can't remember offhand. 

"But 'Yanks' sounds American. It's short and sweet 
and strong. I think it hits the nail on the head. I know 
Southerners as a rule don't like it. I've heard others kick 
like you, but it suits me until they invent something better." 

"You evidently have forgotten that in Europe the word 
Yankee is a term of levity used in comic papers. In England 
it is a subject of burlesque on the stage," argued the first 
speaker. "Yankee, to most foreigners, implies a cute, keen, 
grasping individual with a nasal twang who would sell you 
wooden nutmegs. The only bunch that the name fits is the 
Twenty-sixth Division. For the New England outfit it's 
great, because they come from real Yankee stock, but 
Yanks is no name to saddle on a Southerner. I object to 
branding the entire overseas army with it. Why isn't 
'American' good enough?" 

I could see the point of the Virginian's argument and had 
heard the issue debated a great many times at the front, but 
as the chap from South Carolina said, the war produced no 
stronger, more appropriate or popular title for the Americans 
than "Yanks." 

Nobody disputed the title of the Twenty-sixth, and 
officers and men sure were proud of the name "Yankee 
Division." It had bundled up in it all the fighting spirit and 
traditions of New England. It made them fight better. 
Every man of them would have died to uphold the dignity 
of the letters "Y. D." 

They were proud also of the tributes paid to the division 
by the French and of the citations received from the Ameri- 
can Army Headquarters. One of the most treasured docu- 



SPEAKING OF "YANKS" 41 

ments in the Yankee Division files is a letter from the cure 
of Rupten-Woevre, who gave the Yankee Division credit 
for liberating the people of that region. 

The letter, addressed to General Edwards, follows : 

Rupt-en-Woevre, Sept. 13, 1918. 

Sir: Your gallant Twenty-sixth American Division has just set 
us free. 

Since September, 1914, the barbarians have held the heights of 
the Meuse, have foully murdered three hostages from Mouilly, 
have shelled Rupt, and, on July 23, 1915, forced its inhabitants to 
scatter to the four corners of France. 

I, who remain at my listening post upon the advice of my 
bishop, feel certain, sir, that I do but speak for Monseigneur 
Ginisty, lord bishop of Verdun, my parishioners of Rupt, Mouilly 
and Genicourt, and the people of this vicinity in conveying to you 
and your associates the heartfelt and unforgettable gratitude of 
all. 

Several of your comrades lie at rest in our truly Christian and 
French soil. 

Their ashes shall be cared for as if they were our own. We 
shall cover their graves with flowers and shall kneel by them as 
their own families would do, with a prayer to God to reward with 
eternal glory these heroes fallen on the field of honor, and to bless 
the Twenty-sixth Division and generous America. 

Be pleased, sir, to accept the expression of my profound 
respect. 

A. LECLERC, 

Cure of Rupt-en-Woevre. 

As the Yankee Division fought with the Sixth French 
Army, it shared in the praises bestowed in the following 
memoranda, which were posted and later filed in the di- 
vision files: 

Sixth Army Staff— Third Bureau. July 26, 1918. 

No. 2283-3. 

MEMORANDUM. 

The President of the republic, during a visit to the Sixth Army, 
expressed his satisfaction over the results obtained as well as the 
proofs of valor and endurance shown by all the units of the army. 



42 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

The commanding general of the Sixth Army takes pleasure in 
communicating to the troops of his army the congratulations of the 
President of the republic. 

GENERAL DEGOUTTE. 

Sixth Army Staff— Third Bureau. July 26, 1918. 

No. 2284-3. 

MEMORANDUM. 

The commanding general of the Sixth Army brings to the 
attention of the troops of the army the following address received 
from the Mayors of the arrondissement of Meaux, in meeting 
assembled, on the 20th of July, 1918: 

"The mayors of the arrondissement of Meaux, in meeting 
assembled, on the 20th of July, 1918, are happy to acknowledge 
the great victory of the Sixth Army, which, as at the time of the 
battle of the Marne, has just saved their commune from the in- 
vasion which was threatening them. 

"Send to the valiant troops of the Sixth Army the most earnest 
expression of their gratitude and admiration. 

"The President of the Congress of Mayors, 

"G. HUGEL, 
"Mayor of Meaux, 
"Deputy from Department of Seine and Marne." 

The commanding general takes pleasure in transmitting these 
congratulations to the troops of his army. 

GENERAL DEGOUTTE. 

Sixth Army. July 29, 1918. 

No. 2353-3. 

From: General Degoutte, commanding Sixth Army. 

To: General Edwards, commanding the Twenty-sixth Division. 

"The operations carried out by Twenty-sixth American Divi- 
sion from July 18 to July 24 demonstrated the fine soldierly 
qualities of this unit and the worth of its leader, General Edwards. 

"Co-operating in the attack north of the Marne, the Twenty- 
sixth Division fought brilliantly on the line Torcy-Belleau, at 
Monthiers, Epieds and Trugny and in the Forest of Fere, advanc- 
ing more than fifteen kilometers in depth in spite of the des- 
perate resistance of the enemy. 

"I take great pleasure in communicating to General Edwards 
and his valiant division this expression of my great esteem, to- 
gether with my heartiest congratulations for the manner in which 
they have served the common cause. 

"DEGOUTTE." 



SPEAKING OF "YANKS" 43 

Sixth Army. Aug. 9, 1918. 

General Order. 

"Before the great offensive of July 18 the American troops 
forming a part of the Sixth French Army distinguished themselves 
by taking from the enemy the Bois de la Brigade de Marine (re- 
named in honor of the American Marines who, with the Ninth and 
Twenty-third Infantry Regiments, the whole making up the 
Second Division, stopped the German drive on Paris) and the 
village of Vaux, stopping his offensive on the Marne and at Fossoy. 

"Since then they have taken a more glorious part in the second 
battle of the Marne, rivalling the French troops in ardor and gal- 
lantry. In twenty days of incessant fighting they liberated numer- 
ous villages and made, over a difficult terrain, an advance of forty 
kilometers, which carried them beyond the Vesle. 

"Their glorious advance is marked by names which will make 
illustrious the military history of the United States — Torcy, 
Belleau, Plateau de Etrepilly, Epieds, Le Charmel, the Ourcq, 
Seringes-et-Nestles, Sergy, the Vesle and Fismes. 

"The new divisions, under fire for the first time, showed them- 
selves worthy of the old fighting traditions of the regular army. 
They had the same ardent desire to whip the Boches and that dis- 
cipline which always insures the carrying out of orders of their 
commanders, whatever be the difficulties to be overcome or the 
sacrifices to be made. 

"The magnificent results obtained are due to the energy and 
skilfulness of their commanders and to the bravery of the soldiers. 

"I am proud to have commanded such troops. 

"The commanding general of the Sixth Army. 

(Signed) "DEGOUTTE. ,, 

Then came this praise from General Pershing, com- 
mander-in-chief of the American forces, in which the 
Twenty-sixth Division was specifically mentioned with 
others: 

G. H. Q. 
"AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. 
"FRANCE, 
"General Orders. Aug. 28, 1918. 

"No. 143. 

"It fills me with pride to record in general orders a tribute to 
the service and achievements of the First and Third Corps, com- 
prising the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty- 



44 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

eighth, Thirty-second and Forty-second Divisions of the American 
Expeditionary Forces. 

"You came to the battlefield at the crucial hour of the allied 
cause. For almost four years the most formidable army the world 
had as yet seen had pressed its invasion of France and stood 
threatening its capital. At no time had that army been more 
powerful or menacing than when, on July 15, it struck again to 
destroy in one great battle the brave men opposed to it and to 
enforce its brutal will upon the world and civilization. 

"Three days later, in conjunction with our allies, you counter- 
attacked. The allied armies gained a brilliant victory that marks 
the turning point of the war. You did more than give our brave 
allies the support to which as a nation our faith was pledged. You 
proved that our altruism, our pacific spirit, our sense of justice 
have not blunted our virility or our courage. You have shown 
that American initiative and energy are as fit for the test of war as 
for the pursuits of peace. You have justly won the unstinted 
praise of our allies and the eternal gratitude of our countrymen. 

"We have paid for our success in the lives of many of our 
brave comrades. We shall cherish their memory always, and 
claim for our history and literature their bravery, achievement 
and sacrifice." 



CHAPTER VI. 

Pertinent Citations. 

BIn addition to proving in an official way the 
efficiency and success of the Yankee Division, the 
citations and general orders give an accurate por- 
trayal of the battles in which the New England 
troops figured. With that point in view I have selected 
these fragments from the division archives for your con- 
sideration: 

"HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
"AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 
"FRANCE, 

"General Orders. Aug. % 1918. 

"No. 67. 

"To the Officers and Men of the Twenty-sixth Division: 

"On July 18th you entered, as part of the allied drive against 
the enemy, upon the offensive and continued the offensive combat 
until the major portion of the command was relieved on July 25th. 

"On the assumption of the offensive your position in the 
line demanded an important and difficult manoeuvre. Your suc- 
cess in this was immediate and great, and the way in which you exe- 
cuted it elicited high praise from the French Army commander. 
The eight days from July 18th to 25th, marking the first great 
advance against the enemy in which American troops bore pro- 
portionately a considerable share, are sure of historical setting. 
Your part therein can never be forgotten. In those eight days you 
carried your line as far as any part of the advance was carried. 
Torcy, Belleau, Givry, the Bouresches Woods, Rochet Woods, 
Hill 190, overlooking Chateau Thierry, Etrepilly, Epides, Trugny, 
and finally La Fere Woods and the objective, the Jaulgonne- 
Fere-en-Tardenois Road, belong to your arms. You are the re- 
cipient of praise, thanks and congratulations of our commander- 
in-chief. You went unafraid into the face of the enemy's fire; you 
forced him to withdraw before you, or to accept the alternative of 

45 



46 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

hand-to-hand combat, in which you proved yourself morally and 
physically his superior; you gave freely and gave much of your 
strength and of your blood and your lives, until pushed beyond 
mere physical endurance, fighting night and day, you still forced 
yourselves forward, sustained almost by spirit alone. 

"These things are now part of your own consciousness. Noth- 
ing can detract from them. Nothing that I can say can add to 
them. But I can testify in this way to my pride in commanding 
such troops, so capable of achieving success in every undertaking, 
and this testimony I give to each of you gladly and with deep 
gratitude. 

"C. R. EDWARDS, 

"Major-General, Commanding." 

"HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 

"AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

"FRANCE, 

''General Orders. Sept. 28,1918. 

"No. 82. 

"To the Twenty-sixth Division: 

"1. Again it becomes my duty and pleasure to congratulate 
this division on the important part it played in the battle of the 
■St. Mihiel salient, Sept. 12-14, 1918. 

"Our task was to attack on the historic and hitherto impreg- 
nable ground near Les Eparges, where in the past so many thou- 
sands of French lives have been sacrificed. 

"In front of us the fortifications were manned by Germans, with 
a No Man's Land on difficult slopes, churned and pitted by four 
years of shelling and with a mass of wire and other obstacles from 
trench to trench. 

"The three infantry regiments in line, the One Hundred and 
First, the One Hundred and Third and the One Hundred and 
Fourth, with the brigade machine gun units, met a determined 
resistance. The enemy machine gun fire was intense. The 
artillery, without daylight registration, did well during that part 
of the night allowed for preparation, in cutting breaches through 
this mass of wire, which were completed by the infantry before and 
during the attack. 

"The determined and effective methods of the infantry in the 
attack on the machine gun nests, the deliberate locating of these 
nests, and the subsequent infiltration processes used in over- 
coming these nests; the bold dashes wherever opportunity offered, 
in one case resulting in the Second Battalion of the One Hundred 



PERTINENT CITATIONS 47 

and Third Infantry rushing and capturing a hostile battalion of 
greater strength before the enemy could raise his head; the fine 
liaison and co-operation of the artillery; the expedition with which 
follow-up roads were constructed by the engineers; the enterprise 
of the medical, supply and other auxiliary units — all combined to 
prove that its wide service and experience have made this a veteran 
division. 

"I was pleased with all elements of the division. 

"2. By dark, on the 12th, the principal resistance of the enemy 
had been overcome. Then came the order to close the gap be- 
tween our forces on the north and our troops advancing from the 
south, in order to prevent the escape of the enemy from St. Mihiel. 
Our mission then was to reach Vigneulles before daylight and there 
establish contact with troops of our Fourth Corps. 

"3. The One Hundred and Second Infantry, in the division 
reserve, which had followed the advance closely throughout the 
battle in readiness for any such emergency, was ordered to spare 
neither energy nor blood to accomplish this mission. The whole 
division was pushed forward through the night, the rest of the 
Fifty-first Infantry Brigade following the dash of the One Hundred 
and Second Infantry, and the Fifty-second Infantry Brigade 
moving out on the left rear of the One Hundred and Second In- 
fantry, with the towns on the plain to the northwest of Hatton- 
chatel, to include St. Maurice, as objectives. 

"In less than one-half hour after receipt of this order the One 
Hundred and Second Infantry and the One Hundred and Second 
Machine Gun Battalion were on the march, led and inspired by 
the regimental and battalion commanders in person. They 
marched over nine kilometers on the only existing road, through a 
dense forest, in an unknown and hostile country infested with the 
enemy, losing, for the time being, liaison both to the right and left. 
The leading elements, passing through Hattonchatel, reached 
Vigneulles before 2 o'clock in the morning, took complete posses- 
sion of those two towns, and pushing out occupied Creue and 
Heudicourt and blocked the roads leading from the southwest, 
while sending patrols further into the plain to gain contact with 
the American forces coming from the south. 

"This advance force captured many prisoners, much ammuni- 
tion, stores of all kinds, and released many captive civilians from 
St. Mihiel that the enemy in his retreat was forced by the One 
Hundred and Second Infantry to abandon. 

"With this advance force were the entire One Hundred and 
Second Infantry, three companies of the One Hundred and 
Second Machine Gun Battalion and part of the One Hundred and 



48 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

First Machine Gun Battalion from the division reserve. This last 
part, abandoning its motors, marched fourteen kilometers, carry- 
ing its guns by hand the entire way. 

"By the morning the whole command had taken possession of 
all the towns in the sector of its advance, and was impatient to 
pursue the enemy across the Hindenburg line. 

"The towns of St. Remy, Dommartin, Thillot, St. Maurice, 
Billy-sous-les-Cotes, Vieville-sous-les-Cotes, Hattonchatel, Han- 
nonville, Vigneulles, Creue, Heudicourt, Deuxnouds, Wadonville, 
Avillers and Butgneville, as well as the entire length of the Grande 
Tranchee de Calone, with a gain of fourteen kilometers, belong to 
your arms. 

"The division captured about 2,400 prisoners, large stores of 
supplies and ammunition, horses and motor transportation and 
about 50 guns. 

"I am proud of you. You are a shock division. 

"C. R. EDWARDS, 

"Major-General, Commanding." 

"HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 

"AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

"FRANCE, 

"General Orders. Oct. 10, 1918. 

"No. 85. 

"1. The following letters are published to the command: 

"Second Colonial Corps. H. Q., Oct. 3, 1918. 

"Staff. No. 29,329. 

"From: General Blondlat, commanding Second Colonial Corps. 
"To: The commander-in-chief (through channels, general com- 
manding Second Army). 
"Subject: Proposition for citation in Army Orders in favor of the 
First Battalion, One Hundred and Second Regiment of Infantry, 
United States. 
"I have the honor to send you the report which I had the 
general commanding the Twenty-sixth United States Division to 
make on the very hard and glorious combat which this division 
engaged Sept. 26, 1918. 

"The Second Colonial Corps had received orders to carry out 
extensive raids to attract and fix the attention of the enemy: 
'General Order No. 20, Sept. 20, 1918, of the general commanding 
the First United States Army — The Second Colonial Corps will 
hold the front of Bois le Chauffour inclusive to Mesnil exclusive. 



PERTINENT CITATIONS 49 

" 'The Second Colonial Corps will make a demonstration along 
its front, launching artillery bombardment as well as making ex- 
tensive raids at H hour.' 

"The dimension and duration of the raid executed by the 
Twenty-sixth United States Division certainly deceived the 
enemy as to our intentions, the losses suffered by the troops taking 
part in this operation were fairly severe, but there is no doubt that 
those suffered by the Germans were much more serious. 

"The spirit of sacrifice and magnificent courage displayed by 
the troops of the Twenty-sixth United States Division on this 
occasion were certainly not in vain; they seem to me worthy of 
recompense and praise; therefore, I directed the general com- 
manding this division to address propositions to me on this 
subject. 

"I urgently request that the First Battalion of the One Hun- 
dred and Second Infantry be cited in army orders on the following 
grounds : 

' Ticked troops, who, trained by Colonel Hiram J. Bearss, 
led the attack in the first line, carried out brilliantly and with 
splendid energy a particularly delicate operation; engaged battle 
with a superb dash; won a victory after a violent combat over an 
enemy who was both stubborn and superior in numbers, entrenched 
in concreted shelters, strongly supported by numerous machine 
guns and powerful artillery, and who made use of, in the course of 
the action, infamous methods of warfare; heroically carried out 
their mission in capturing in heavy fighting a village where they 
maintained themselves all day in spite of four enemy counter- 
attacks, and thus furnished the finest example of courage, abnega- 
tion and self-sacrifice.' 

"I request further that the officers and men mentioned in 
General Edwards' report receive each and severally the rewards 
suggested for them by name. 

(Signed) "BLONDLAT." 

"HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
"AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 
"FRANCE, 

"General Orders. Oct. 24, 1918. 

"No. 93. 

"2. The following tribute to the division is published for the 
information of all concerned : 



50 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"HEADQUARTERS, 

"Seventeenth Army Corps. Oct. 24, 1918. 

"Staff. First Bureau. 

"From: General Claudel, commanding the Seventh Army Corps. 
"To: The commanding general, Twenty-sixth Division. 

"General — The reputation of your division preceded it here far 
ahead. 

"To all its titles of glory gained in fierce struggles, and only re- 
cently at the signal of Hattonchatel, it has added on the 23d day 
of October a page which perhaps is more modest, but still does it 
great honor. 

"In a few hours, as at a manoeuvre, it has gained all the ob- 
jectives assigned to it in the difficult sector of the woods of Houppy, 
Etrayes and Belleau. 

"This operation is evidence, indeed, of superior instruction, 
mobility and will. 

"I do not know how to thank you sufficiently for your assist- 
ance, dear general, and it is my great desire to express to you all 
our grateful admiration for your splendid division, which thus has 
added its name to all of those who have fought to hurl the enemy 
back from the outskirts of Verdun. "H. CLAUDEL. 

"C. R. EDWARDS, 

"Major-General, Commanding." 



Here are a few earlier commendations : 

ARMY H. Q. 

"Eighth Army. June 8, 1918. 

"Staff— 3d Bureau. 
"No. 5310. 

"SERVICE MEMORANDUM. 

"The commanding general of the Eighth Army (French) is 
happy to pronounce the success of the raid on the Camp du Moulin, 
carried out during the night of May 30-31, 1918, by the 101st 
Regiment of American Infantry. 

"He requests the commanding general of the Thirty-second 
Army Corps to forward his congratulations for this operation, as 
well planned as it was energetically conducted, to the command- 
ing general of the Twenty-sixth American Division. 

(Signed) "GERARD." 



PERTINENT CITATIONS 51 

True Copy Sent to: 
Commanding General, 
Twenty-sixth American Division. 
Thirty-second Army Corps. 
Staff — 3d Bureau. 
No. 2918 B-3. 

"The commanding general of the Thirty-second Army Corps 
is happy to forward the congratulations of the commanding general 
of the Eighth Army to the commanding general of the Twenty- 
sixth American Division. 

"By Order of the Chief of Staff. 

(Signed) "E. MANGIN." 
H. Q., June 9, 1918. 

"GENERAL HEADQUARTERS AMERICAN EXPE- 
DITIONARY FORCES. 
"OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF. 

June 20, 1918. 
"14790-A-106 (PF). 
' 'From : Commander-in-chief. 

"To: Commanding general, Twenty-sixth Division. 

"Subject: 103d Regiment. 

"1. I am directed by the commander-in-chief to inform you 
that he has noted with sincere appreciation the excellent work of 
the 103d Regiment of your division, which inflicted severe losses 
in killed, wounded and prisoners in repelling the strong raid 
attempted by the enemy on the morning of June 16, 1918, on the 
Xivray sector. 

"J. W. McANDREW, 

"Chief of Staff.'* 

HEADQUARTERS. 

"Eighth Army. June 27, 1918. 

"32d Army Corps. 

"Staff. 

"3d Office. 

"3292-3. 

"GENERAL ORDER NO. 133. 

"At the moment when the Twenty-sixth Division of Infantry 
of the United States is leaving the Thirty-second French Corps I 
salute its colors and thank it for the splendid services it has ren- 
dered here to the common cause. 



52 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"Under the distinguished command of their chief, General 
Edwards, the high-spirited soldiers of the 'Yankee Division' have 
taught the enemy some bitter lessons, at Bois Brule, at Seiche- 
prey, at Xivray-Marvoisin : they have taught him to realize the 
staunch vigor of the sons of the great republic, fighting for the 
world's freedom. 

"My heartiest good wishes will accompany the 'Yankee 
Division' always, in its future combats. 

"GENERAL PASSAGA, 
"Commanding the Thirty-second Army Corps. 
(Signed) "PASSAGA." 

The following excerpt from the dispatch of a Chicago 
correspondent relative to the fighting qualities of the Yankee 
Division is interesting: 

"The Germans found themselves in such a disfavorable posi- 
tion in Monthieres that they had to begin a retreat. 

"On the 21st the whole German line was in retreat and the 
Chateau Thierry-Soissons highway was reached. The Americans 
were cleaning the ground and vigorously pursued the enemy's 
rear guard. 

"On the 22d a battalion of Americans occupied Epieds. There 
was hard fighting in the village and the enemy opened a violent 
barrage fire. The fight was in open country and on that day it 
was not possible to take the village entirely. Rather than to 
sustain heavy losses, the commander of the American division 
preferred to take his troops to the rear. It was necessary, if the 
difficulty was to be overcome, to start the surrounding move- 
ment again, and on the 23d the Americans sought to enter 
Trugny Wood, south of Epieds. 

"The Germans strongly opposed this attempt and counter- 
attacked with energy, but they learned at their expense what 
American tenacity is. Stopped once in the manoeuvre, the Ameri- 
cans occupied the fringe of the wood on the 24th, entered it de- 
liberately, took a whole company of German pioneers and con- 
tinued their advance with such fury that about 3 P. M. they were 
at the fringes of the Fere Woods and on the same evening had 
reached the road from Fere-en-Tardenois to Jaulgonne. 

"This American division has, therefore, realized in three days 
an advance of as much as 17 kilometers at certain points, fighting 
continuously night and day, and DISPLAYING THE FINEST 
MILITARY QUALITIES. All the liaison services worked per- 



PERTINENT CITATIONS 53 

feetly, both at the right and left wings and between the units of 
the division. 

# "A discipline which caused the Germans to wonder and admire 
animated the attacking troops. They were marching with their 
officers at the head of the column and their bodyguards on the 
flanks, as the French troops. The German prisoners were as- 
tonished. 'We do not see often those who command us,' they de- 
clared to their captors. 'You are lucky; like the French, you are 
led to the fight by your officers.' The French and American high 
commands worked during the action in as close harmony as the 
troops. 

"The general commanding the division in question is a leader 
of men, broad-minded, precise in his orders, of practical mind, 
who from the first moment dealt with the problems raised by the 
operations under way with a mastery which cost dear to the enemy. 

"These days from the 18th to the 25th give a new and emphatic 
proof of what the alliance of France and the United States can do 
on a battlefield." 

That's a bouquet for you, and from an observer from 
Chicago, a stranger free from local bias who wrote what he 
saw and gave the Yankee Division its due. Don't forget 
what he said about "Finest military qualities" and about 
the commanders of the Twenty-sixth leading their men. 
That was true in every battle in which the New England 
division fought. The officers of the division were so pleased 
with this tribute that the newspaper clipping was reproduced 
in division orders and distributed to every company. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Front Line Famine and Mud 

B Watching a division of strangers going into 
battle and watching a division made up almost en- 
tirely of acquaintances and friends were different 
matters, from an emotional standpoint. 

You felt for them all, but when Eddie and Bob, Billy, 
Dick, Jack and Harry went in — well, it whittled the great 
struggle down to a personal issue. It brought the war home. 

When the machine guns sputtered and the artillery 
roared and the heavens glowed with the flashes of monster 
guns for miles ; when signal rockets traced fantastic outlines 
in the darkness and seemed straining to inject an element of 
celebration which was a mockery of their purpose; when 
dreaded "umbrella" flares turned night into day and made 
doughboys in shallow "fox-holes" seem as big as houses — 
when all the machinery of modern war thundered a mad 
medley and the fury of fighting men had converted the 
battle zone into an inferno that no pen can ever hope to de- 
scribe — you wondered how your friends were weathering it 
in the front line and you thought of them individually. 

Then war's toll — the human wreckage — began to filter 
back through the tempest, the more seriously wounded on 
litters, and the walking wounded with dishevelled hair and 
uniforms smeared with mud and filth, faces blanched, eyes 
sunken, looking like creatures long entombed, an arm hang- 
ing limp, or blouse stained red by a patch that grew larger 
as you looked at it. 

While first aid men and surgeons toiled with the flood of 
stricken at advanced dressing stations and wounded lay 
thick all about, enemy shells burst and killed many who had 

54 



FRONT LINE FAMINE AND MUD 55 

come from the outer line with curable hurts. Many doctors 
and litter-bearers were among these victims. 

There was no safety zone when a battle was raging. 
Death stalked everywhere, reaping almost as liberally six 
kilometers back as in the front lines. Fifty per cent of the 
casualties occurred well back from gas and shrapnel. 

As the tide of battle swept forward, and it invariably did 
when the Yanks hit the line, you saw dead scattered every- 
where, looking like so many discarded overcoats dotting the 
landscape, in the uncertain light of dawn. The ground, 
broken and torn, was littered with abandoned equipment, 
Boche and American, with rifles and bayonets and small 
arms, cantines, helmets, gas masks, caps and unused ammu- 
nition of all sorts. 

There was always an amazingly large quantity of unused 
grenades and machine gun strips. I have seen corrugated 
"egg" grenades and "potato-mashers" with handles strewn 
so thick after a battle that it was difficult to walk without 
stepping on them. A young woman writer and several 
friends who were being escorted by a French officer came 
across hand grenades on a battlefield one day. The woman 
author, with feminine curiosity, picked up a "potato- 
masher" and it blew off her arm, killed the French officer and 
wounded all others of the party less seriously. 

We often wondered how many tons of steel and explosives 
lay buried over the face of France, to say nothing of the 
hundreds of thousands of bodies. It is said that a million 
men were buried in the Somme country, and, after motoring 
through it, and seeing the miles of destruction and numerous 
graves, you can readily conceive it. The days of reclama- 
tion and cultivation* are bound to witness strange sights, and 
perhaps accidents, when the first plows get busy. 

Salvage parties combed battlefields and stacked and re- 
moved "live" ammunition, which included the "duds" that 
failed to explode. But these searching parties, whose job 
was extremely dangerous, raked up only the unburied shells 
and bombs. 



56 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

A private in an infantry company of the Yankee Division 
started a fire one evening after the armistice and was blown 
into eternity. The heat exploded a shell buried under a 
thin layer of earth. 

Many of the wounded came in famished. They had 
been fighting in isolated positions where the play of enemy 
artillery was so accurate that it was physically impossible to 
get food to them even by foot couriers, which was often tried 
in vain. Volunteers for this work performed some of the 
most heroic duty of the war and many died in the attempt. 
The British inaugurated the practice of dropping packages 
of food from low-swooping aeroplanes to men in isolated 
positions. 

The front line famine occurred in every great battle and 
in every army, Allied and German alike. It was a war con- 
dition next to impossible to avert. But you could not re- 
frain from thinking of the irony and pity of it — that Ameri- 
cans, or any fighting men, should crave for food and drink 
with such an abundance close at hand and with billions of 
dollars to purchase more — shy of nourishment when they 
needed it most. This, to me, was one of the biggest trag- 
edies of the war. 

The soldiers soon exhausted "iron" rations when cut off. 
They went days without food or water when isolated by 
enemy fire. Often they crawled in desperation, under cover 
of darkness, to some near-by shell hole and drank from a 
polluted pool. Mouths and bronchial tubes were burned 
and poisoned in this way because the stagnant rain water 
had been tainted by mustard gas and other corruption. 

On the French and British fronts soldiers sought out 
mine craters which had been flooded by rain and used them 
as swimming pools, after first carefully poking the bottom 
with poles to make sure no dead Boche lay concealed, as was 
often the case. 

The war was so complex and so staggeringly stupendous 
and the artillery was so dense and active that no writer can 
hope to give a word picture of it in anything resembling its 



FRONT LINE FAMINE AND MUD 57 

entirety. It is best conjured from glimpses and flashes 
caught here and there and by incidents and individual acts 
of bravey. Episodes like those of Perkins and Dilboy and 
Major Whittlesey's lost battalion of the Seventy-seventh 
Division and other melodramatic features help paint a com- 
posite picture and weave a comprehensive war fabric. 

It is equally difficult to describe the ground over which 
the Yankee Division troops fought and the conditions under 
which they lived, or, we might say, existed. It may help 
you to try to compare with some beautiful stretch of country 
where you live or have spent a vacation the rolling hills, 
clothed by what had been dense woods, in the country north 
of Verdun, each height serving as a natural barrier and inter- 
laced with a succession of German lines of defence. In such 
a theatre were fought the closing battles of the war by the 
men of the New England division. 

Fancy trees splintered and stripped and blackened, re- 
sembling gaunt spectres. Fancy the ground so torn by 
shells and bombs and mines that scarcely a blade of grass 
or a foot of level surface remained. Fancy this pocked sur- 
face smeared with mud and abandoned equipment and 
dotted with bodies, stained by the blood of martyrs and so 
upheaved that it looked very much like an ocean lashed by 
a storm. 

Fancy the fighting men, your sons, brothers and hus- 
bands, huddled in "fox-holes" hurriedly scratched out with 
trench shovels, a process known as "digging in," hugging 
these shallow shelters on the lee side of every embankment 
and hill until the word to go over was given. Every now 
and then a shell dropped and obliterated a position and its 
crew. 

Try, but you cannot hope adequately, to conceive the 
awful stench of decayed flesh of men and horses, a stench so 
overpowering that we tasted it for days. Fancy a terrain so 
torn that it was almost impossible to walk without stumbling 
even if the enemy snipers permitted such a privilege — a 
place where to show a head or hand or to strike a match or 



58 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

even cough was fatal. Picture a place where almost every 
"arrival," as enemy projectiles were known, disinterred the 
leg or arm or head of some soldier that had fallen in earlier 
battles and with every new corpse exhumed an increase in 
the stench. 

"Dutch" Mahan, private in A Company, 101st In- 
fantry, and a reporter on the Boston Post in peace times, 
told me he and his bunkie were on outpost one night, and, 
while digging in, they unearthed a "fat Heinie." Said 
"Dutch," in conclusion: 

"We hated to shift after completing our fox-hole, be- 
cause it had to be done without noise and it was ticklish 
shifting, but the smell forced a decision." 

Everywhere you looked was ruin and desolation and 
death. You wondered how anybody came out of that hell- 
hole alive. 

The MUD. That's it— MUD. 

I venture to say that if you made a canvass of the men 
of the combat division, 90 per cent of them would say that 
they abhorred the mud more than the vermin or the rain, or 
the biting winds, or the gas, and almost as much as the shells 
and bullets. 

Mud, sticky, greasy, germ-laden MUD. 

It was plastered thick over everything, even in the 
doughboys' hair. It was the curse of the war — MUD. 
MUD. MUD. 

It almost drove men insane. It stuck to hands and feet, 
heavy, ugly MUD. 

It was worse than the rats. It was worse than the itch. 
It was hell — that battle mud of Europe — and every man who 
crawled through it and fought, ate and slept in it and who 
drove a courier's cycle, or a motor car or truck, every runner 
and mule-skinner will bear out what I say. 

Allen, correspondent for a London newspaper, told me 
that early in the war, when the French were obliged to stop 
the Germans by just force of men in the face of withering 
artillery attacks, soldiers were drowned in the mud of the 



FRONT LINE FAMINE AND MUD 59 

battlefields. Shell and mine craters were filled with ooze, 
and when troops tumbled in at night they were left to their 
fate, because there was no time to rescue a few. Allen said 
out of patrols numbering several hundred men sent out those 
nights less than half would return. He added: 

"Another correspondent and I wriggled through a bar- 
rage one night on our stomachs from shell hole to shell hole 
and we encountered soft, slimy objects which next day we 
discovered to have been bodies coated with mud. They 
looked like mummies. It made us shudder to see them in 
daylight; what we had been crawling over in the dark." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Turned No Man's Into "Yankee Land" 

B Everybody in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 
Rhode Island and Massachusetts will be interested 
in the record made by the Fifty-second Infantry 
Brigade, as told by Brigadier-General Charles H. 
Cole, its commander, because the brigade was made up of 
increments from all of the New England States. 

There was not a more vigorous arm in the Yankee 
Division. 

General Cole was formerly Police Commissioner and 
Fire Commissioner of Boston and Adjutant-General of 
Massachusetts when its militia went to the Mexican border. 
When the Bay State militia was called out for duty in a 
real war, Cole enlisted as a private in Colonel Logan's regi- 
ment, and within a few months became a brigadier- 
general. 

He was the first general officer to take over a front line 
brigade sub-sector of a divisional front in the American 
Expeditionary Forces. He was also the first National 
Guard officer to take over a front line command in France, 
and Colonel Edward L. Logan was the first National 
Guard colonel to take over a regimental front on the battle 
line. 

The Twenty-sixth Division was the first American 
division to fill a divisional sector when it entered the line at 
Toul. 

The Fifty-second Infantry Brigade never lost ground on 
either the offensive or defensive. It did not know the mean- 
ing of "retreat," and turned "No Man's Land" into "Yankee 

60 



TURNED NO MAN'S INTO "YANKEE LAND" 61 

Land," because its patrols penetrated wherever and when- 
ever necessity demanded. 

The Fifty-second Brigade took 1,500 prisoners. It 
gained thirty kilometers of enemy ground. Its total casual- 
ties were 5,000. 

The 103d Infantry, commanded by Colonel Frank M. 
Hume of Houlton, Me., never lost a prisoner while holding 
a defensive sector, a record equalled by few and surpassed 
by no other American regiment. 

The 103d Infantry was a tip-top fighting machine. It 
did not receive its share of publicity. It was made up 
chiefly of National Guardsmen from Maine, with incre- 
ments from Vermont and New Hampshire. 

It was the only New England organization with full- 
blooded Indians in its ranks, a squad of real Americans from 
the Passamaquoddy tribe, every one of whom fought true 
to form and every one of whom was either killed or wounded. 
Colonel Hume said there were no braver lads in his command 
than the warriors from the Maine tribe. 

The 103d Infantry lost 393 killed and about 2,600 
wounded. Like their commanders, both of whom were 
removed and reinstated, the 103d and 101st Infantry Regi- 
ments were bound by close ties, although in different 
brigades, and there were no better shock troops in Europe. 

The fate of Lieutenant Howard and his raiding party 
was one of the most tragic losses in General Cole's brigade. 
Lieutenant Howard, efficient and fearless, was ordered to 
take a hazardous objective, north of Verdun, on Oct. 14. 
The little raiding party penetrated the enemy line, but not 
one of them came back. 

When the column advanced several days later, Lieuten- 
ant Howard and his band of 29 patriots were found dead, 
close to their objective, and every man was facing the 
enemy. Hopelessly outnumbered, they fought until the 
last man fell. 

Lieutenant Bates, who arrived ten days before from a 
military school in California, was ordered, on Sept. 26, to 



62 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

make a bayonet charge on Marcheville, where machine guns 
bristled. With his platoon he charged the town and took 
it and shielded another attacking force. 

Captain Phillips was placed in command of a battalion 
in the attack at Chateau Thierry. Shot in the stomach, he 
ordered another to take command and told his battalion to 
push on and not to bother about him. 

General Cole praised the work of Joseph O'Connor, a 
young Worcester surgeon, who had been his adjutant and 
who was promoted from captain to major and sent to the 
staff college, where he became an instructor. Lieutenant 
Francis Logan, brother of Colonel Logan, succeeded Major 
O'Connor as adjutant to General Cole, and Frank won a 
captain's bars before he came home. 

General Cole also praised Lieutenant Horton Edmunds, 
formerly a reporter on the Boston Herald, who, although 
married a little more than a year and just come daddy of a 
bouncing son, cast his lot with the army, won a commission 
at Plattsburg, was transferred to the Yankee Division be- 
fore it sailed and was assigned to the line in the Fifty-second 
Brigade. 

"Lieutenant Edmunds developed into a 'corker,' " said 
General Cole. "He led an attack one day that looked like 
certain death and lived to tell it. You wouldn't think he 
had the nerve he showed in action, he is so quiet and good 
natured, but he was there. It was in his blood. His 
father, Colonel Edmunds, formerly commanded the First 
Corps of Cadets. When it comes to handing out bouquets 
I ought really to mention by name every officer in the Fifty- 
second Brigade because they all proved themselves to be 
Americans and soldiers. I cannot praise them too highly, 
officers and men alike. 

"Every man in the brigade mourned the death of Colonel 
P. W. Arnold, who was with the 301st Infantry of the 
Seventy-sixth Division before being transferred to our 
brigade and assigned to the 103d Infantry. Colonel Arnold 
succeeded Colonel Hume, the idol of his regiment, and 



TURNED NO MANS INTO "YANKEE LAND" 63 

coming a stranger at such a delicate time his task was any- 
thing but easy. But his sense of fair play, knowledge of 
human nature, cheerful personality and ability as a soldier 
soon ingratiated him with officers and men. 

"He tripped in the dark one night and fell down a flight 
of stairs, sustaining a double fracture of the skull, and never 
regained consciousness. Although under my command but 
six weeks, I had written on the very night of his death a 
recommendation for his promotion to brigadier-general. 
By his death the regiment lost a splendid leader, an able 
executive and an officer of the highest quality and char- 
acter." 

At this juncture General Cole paused to sign a batch of 
urgent army documents and then proceeded with his narra- 
tive. We were seated before an open fire in his billet in the 
Eccomoy area. 

"The Fifty-second Infantry Brigade," said General Cole, 
"was organized at Westfield, Mass., August 25, 1917. The 
103d Infantry was made up of the Second Maine National 
Guard, 1,600 men from the First New Hampshire Regi- 
ment and increments from the First Vermont Infantry 
and the Sixth and Eighth Massachusetts Regiments. 

"The 104th Infantry was an all-Massachusetts regiment, 
composed of the Second, Sixth and Eighth Infantry Regi- 
ments of the National Guard. The 103d Machine Gun 
Battalion was made up of two troops of Rhode Island 
cavalry, one troop from Connecticut and another troop from 
New Hampshire. It can be seen that the Fifty-second 
Infantry Brigade was distinctly an all- New England brigade. 

"The first elements left Westfield the latter part of 
September, 1917, and arrived in England and France early 
in October. The entire brigade was in France by Oct. 
25. When we arrived, the only means of transportation 
was a broken down flivver, and the acting division com- 
mander used that. 

"The brigade went immediately into training under the 
162d French Infantry, commanded by Colonel Bertrand, 



64 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

and the 151st French Infantry, Colonel Moisson. These 
were noted French regiments. The instruction was in- 
tensive. In addition to policing camp and billets, bathing, 
washing and other work, six hours were devoted every day 
to drill — snow, rain or shine. 

"Instructions included work with the automatic rifle, 
machine guns, 37-millimeter Stokes mortars, hand grenades, 
rifle grenade firing, gas protection and all kinds of trench 
warfare. 

"Our billets were in barns, old and airy, but the men 
never complained. The weather was bleak and damp. 
During the latter part of the training period one of our regi- 
ments had to march six miles and another eight miles to the 
trenches, stand there seven hours in the mud, slush and 
water in a biting temperature, and hike back to billets at 
one and two in the morning and had to turn out again at 
6 A. M. for reveille. 

"Often their shoes were so warped and frozen that they 
couldn't get their sore feet fully into them, but they re- 
ported like soldiers, with scarcely any sleep. And still no 
complaint. 

"It was wonderful the way our men from New England 
stood the hardships preliminary to actual battle. 

"On Feb. 5 the first element started for Chemin-des- 
Dames, where the brigade went into the front line with the 
Twenty-second French Division, General Capespont. We 
first assigned platoons between French platoons, then com- 
panies between French companies, battalions between 
French battalions, and finally regiments were sandwiched 
between French regiments to give them confidence. 

"The training and experience received in the Chemin- 
des-Dames sector was valuable. The Yankee Division was 
far better able to stand intensive shellfire and to weather the 
storm later on than many other divisions that had to be 
rushed into action in the heat of operations. The Chemin- 
des-Dames training with the experience derived in the Toul 
sector made the Yankee Division a first-class shock division* 



TURNED NO MAN'S INTO "YANKEE LAND" 65 

"We remained in the Chemin-des-Dames sector until 
March 21. While there the 104th Infantry made the first 
successful repulse of a German raid of any unit in the Ameri- 
can army. 

"The 104th Infantry also captured the first German 
prisoner taken by American troops. The 104th Infantry 
was complimented by the French division commander for 
defeating the German raid. He said that although they 
had been in the front line only twenty days, they hurled the 
Germans back like veterans. 

"The 103d and 104th Infantry were both complimented 
for their gas discipline while in this sector. In gas attacks 
our regiments suffered only about one-sixth as many casual- 
ties as the French who were in the same attack." 



CHAPTER IX. 
Armistice Day Attack 

BIn the course of his summary of the achievements 
of the Fifty-second Infantry Brigade of the Yankee 
Division, which he commanded, Brigadier-General 
Charles H. Cole declared that units of his brigade 
were ordered to attack after the armistice had been signed 
on Nov. 11, and that the order was rescinded, renewed 
and finally rescinded. 

General Cole said: 

"Having served their apprenticeship and learned some 
of the preliminaries of modern warfare, the Fifty-second 
Infantry Brigade moved from Soissons to the vicinity of 
Bar-sur-Aube, which was reached March 22. The brigade 
then marched east across the country toward its old training 
ground and went into billets, supposedly for rest after their 
tour of duty in the front line. 

"It was the French custom to give troops rest after 
thirty days' service in the front lines, and we expected a 
lay-off, having been in forty-two days, but we were not to 
get it at that time. We hadn't been in our billets more than 
twenty-four hours when orders were received that we were 
to go into the line again. 

"The 104th Infantry started in trucks on March 30, 
and arrived at Vignot, near Commercy, that same night. 
They went into the sector northwest of Toul. On the night 
of March 31st this regiment took over the famous Apremont 
forest, Bois Brule and Brichausard woods, and the 103d 
went into reserve. Part of the 103d Machine Gun Battalion 
went into the front line and part remained in reserve. 

66 



ARMISTICE DAY ATTACK 67 

"At this time the Yankee Division adopted the French 
custom of assigning one machine gun company to every 
infantry regiment, a custom which we kept up until the 
end of the war. The Fifty-second Infantry Brigade took 
over a brigade sector of a divisional front, the Twenty-sixth 
being the first American division to fill a divisional front. 

"The Bois Bruel and the Apremont Forest were noted as 
dangerous sectors. The French had lost prisoners, but had 
not captured a German there for six months prior to our 
arrival. It was the German custom when their morale 
dwindled to make a raid and capture prisoners. They tried 
this wrinkle on the 104th Infantry twelve days after the 
regiment entered the sector. There were a series of raids 
by the enemy there between April 12 and 16. Each was 
repulsed. About seventy-five Germans were captured. 

"Many Germans were killed and wounded. The 104th 
lost only one prisoner. He was captured because he was too 
eager to round up more Boche. For the splendid work 
rendered in that sector the 104th Infantry was cited and 
its colors were decorated. It was the first American regi- 
ment to have its flag decorated and the only one to my 
knowledge. 

"The 103d relieved the 104th and the latter went in 
reserve. Then the Yankee Division was ordered to extend 
its line on the right and the Fifty-first Brigade moved over 
and the 104th returned to the front line to the right of the 
103d. Shortly after, a French regiment relieved the 
103d, which in turn relieved the 104th. The Fifty-second 
Brigade occupied this sub-sector until June 28. 

"On the night of June 16 the Germans made a raid on the 
town of Xivray-Marvoisin, which was held by one company 
of the 103d Infantry and part of D Company of the 103d 
Machine Gun Battalion. The raid was preceded by an 
intense bombardment of our rear areas and front lines on 
the right of Xivray. It was the plan of the enemy to enter 
Xivray from the rear and destroy the dugouts, remain all 
day and retire at night, but the plan failed utterly. 



68 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"The Germans were surprised when fired upon from a 
secret machine gun position. Twenty-two of them were 
killed in as many seconds. Renewing the attack on the 
right, they were again repulsed, although they outnumbered 
us six to one. Although some were first-class shock troops, 
they failed to enter Xivray. They retreated in disorder. 
We took thirty prisoners and buried fifty dead Germans. 
We captured machine guns, ammunition and supplies. 

"While in this sector we converted 'No Man's Land' 
into 'Yankee Land.' Before our arrival the Boche troops 
controlled the space in front, but after our patrols had 
been active a fortnight no German patrols dared show them- 
selves. Both regiments did wonderful patrol work. 
Some of the scouts of the 103d Regiment penetrated 
the enemy lines in daylight, although it was against 
orders. This happened in Apremont Forest. 

"Another patrol from this regiment, commanded by 
Lieutenant Dwight of Boston, cut through electrified wire 
which served as enemy defences near the Tuilleries, brought 
back strands and attached a motor of our own, with which 
contrivance they shocked the Huns with their own wires. 
Every contact with German patrols resulted in their defeat 
and the capture by our men of rifles and equipment. 

"When we left this sector, June 28, we expected surely to 
enjoy the long-deferred rest. Instead the troops were de- 
trained at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. None of the general 
officers even knew of the shift in plans. The men were 
marched into the towns and woods in the vicinity of La 
Ferte. On the night before July 4 the 104th Infantry 
went into the Bois de Belleau and relieved one of the regi- 
ments of the Marine Brigade. On the night of July 4 the 
103d Infantry went into line with the balance of the 103d 
Machine Gun Battalion. 

"The rest of the relief was held up and the Fifty-second 
Infantry Brigade was attached to the Second Division and 
so remained seven or eight days until the Second Division 
moved out. 'Bois de la Brigade Marine,' as the woods 



ARMISTICE DAY ATTACK 69 

were renamed in honor of the Marines, was under violent 
artillery fire twenty-four hours a day. Our casualties ran 
from fourteen to thirty daily there. The first nights we 
hastily buried Marines and Germans found near the lines. 
The dead had been so long unburied that the stench was 
terrible. 

"The 103d Infantry occupied the left of Belleau Woods, 
which was so devastated that it was no better than open 
country. Our men were compelled to lay in shell holes all 
day under heavy shell fire. Daylight lasted sixteen hours. 
They suffered from the Summer heat and lack of food and 
water, but their morale was splendid. 

"On the 20th day of July, the troops on our left having 
come lip, the main attack was again started in an easterly 
direction. At this time, the assault units were the First 
Battalion, 103d Infantry, on the right and the Third 
Battalion, 104th Infantry, on the left. The attack began at 
3 o'clock with an hour's preparation by the division artillery. 

"Counter battery fire by the corps artillery was expected 
for an hour preceding the attack, but not a shot was fired 
until after the attack was made and this cost many lives, as 
the fire in this attack was terrific. The Third Battalion of 
the 103d Infantry struggled to its second objective, Hill 190. 
Out of a battalion 1,000 strong, only 100 remained. 

"On the 23d of July we were ordered to remain in posi- 
tion until the 101st made an attack on our right. This 
attack was successful, and on the morning of the 24th of 
July orders were received to make another attack, but 
before they went into effect our brigade was relieved by the 
Twenty-eighth Division and went into reserve. 

"The division remained in one day more, was relieved, 
and went back to a training area near La Fert sous Jouarre, 
where we remained from the 26th of July until the 14th of 
August, when we moved to the training area near Chatillon. 
We remained there until about the 28th of August, when 
ordered to the St.- Mihiel offensive. We moved by train to 
the vicinity of Bar-sur-Aube. 



70 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"We marched to the sector just north of Les Eparges. 
This was one of the finest executed movements made by the 
Fifty-second Brigade. Every hike was made at night, and 
had to be completed before daylight. The brigade was 
ordered to move into the woods, so that they could not be 
seen by hostile avions. The men were not allowed to move 
out of the woods during the day. This lasted five or six 
nights. On the 8th of September the First Battalion of the 
103d took over the sector from the French near Les Esparge, 
where the French lost 30,000 killed, in the mud, during the 
early part of the war. 

"On Sept. 12th the brigade took part in the St. 
Mihiel offensive with the regiments side by side again. 
The Second Battalion of the 103d and the Second Battalion 
of the 104th were the assault battalions, with machine gun 
companies attached. In this battle there was an artillery 
preparation from about 1 o'clock to 8 o'clock and it took the 
heart out of the Boche. 

"The brigade advanced on schedule time, taking ob- 
jective after objective. The Second Battalion of the 104th 
got into the reserve line of the Germans before they knew it 
and captured a whole German battalion, officers and all. 
We took about 1,200 prisoners. On that night the brigade 
advanced about five kilometers. The next day the attack 
started again and continued that night. During the 
first day we captured the towns of St. Remy and 
Dommartin. 

"Starting again that night without much opposition, 
the troops reached their final objectives, the towns of St. 
Maurice and Billy-sous-les-Cotes. We remained there 
twenty-four hours and then were ordered to take over a 
sector on our left held by the French. This we did. This 
sector included the towns of St. Hiliare and Wadonville. 
The Boche made an attack on St. Hiliare that night, but 
were driven off by Company H, 104th Infantry, Lieutenant 
Morris and Lieutenant Edmunds, and a deployment of 
103d Machine Gun Battalion. 



ARMISTICE DAY ATTACK 71 

"Lieutenant Edmunds coached and talked to his men as 
if it were a football game, telling them how to fire and 
when to fire. We held this sector until about the 7th of 
October. During the time the sector was held we repulsed 
several raids. On the 26th of September, the first day of the 
Meuse and Argonne offensive, the First Battalion of the 
103d Infantry with a battalion of the 102d Infantry made 
a diversion attack on Marcheville and Riaville which was 
successful in diverting the attention of the enemy. 

"On leaving this sector we were ordered to join the 
Seventeenth Army Corps, which was taking part in the 
Meuse- Argonne offensive. The 104th Infantry moved into 
the lines north of Verdun on the 14th of October. It was 
attached to the Eighteenth French Division. The first 
night in line it made an attack in conjunction with tanks on 
the enemy. The tanks failed to make any progress. The 
infantry would have been better off without them. The 
infantry made an attack later the same day and obtained 
their objective. There were many casualties as the result of 
this attack, over 300 in the companies concerned. 

"The 104th Infantry remained in the front, with the 
103d Infantry in reserve, for about ten days, when it was 
relieved by the 103d Infantry. 

"The 104th was ordered to support the attack of the 
Fifty-first Infantry Brigade, and to take over the front of 
that brigade after the losses of the Fifty-first Brigade had 
been heavy. The 104th Infantry was then relieved by the 
Seventy-ninth Division, but remained out only a day or 
two, when it was ordered again into the front lines. 
Shortly after this the 104th had to relieve the Seventy- 
ninth Division, so that this brigade most of the time was 
holding far more space on brigade sector. 

"There were numerous local attacks during all these 
days. On the 8th of November the Boche began with- 
drawing on the front of the brigade. It was discovered by 
both regiments, who watched him closely, and took about 



72 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

two and one-half kilometers from him that afternoon, 
capturing the town of Flabas. 

"On the 9th of November the general attack was or- 
dered, in which both regiments took part, but as there was 
insufficient artillery preparation very little ground was 
gained. The attack was resumed on the 10th, with the 
same result, and on the 11th the attack was ordered after 
the armistice had been signed, the order was rescinded, 
given again and finally rescinded. 

"This brigade was longer in the front lines during the 
Meuse-Argonne offensive than any other brigade except 
that of the Third Division and one French division. Casual- 
ties of the brigade were estimated at about 5,000 officers and 
men. During the attacks the brigade gained about thirty- 
seven kilometers of ground. 

"The brigade never lost any ground either in the attacks 
or defensive. 

"The 103d Infantry never lost a single prisoner while 
holding a defensive sector, a record which cannot be sur- 
passed by any other regiment. 

"We took about 1,500 prisoners. 

"We did not recognize the term 'No Man's Land,' nor 
did the men know the meaning of retreat." 



CHAPTER X. 

Doughboys Are "Gun Fodder" 

B"Oh, the doughboys, the doughboys, with mud 
behind their ears!" 
This line from a song popular in American army 
camps overseas hints at the gruelling grind of the 
infantry. 

In every war the foot troops have had to bear the lion's 
share, but never in history had the infantry faced greater 
peril and hardships than in the late world conflict, because 
of the development and destructiveness of modern war 
machinery. 

Men were called "gun fodder" and the term was no 
exaggeration. At the outset of the war, the French were 
compelled to check the awful sweep of enemy blue-gray 
with men, just force of men, and the slaughter was terrible 
until they had an opportunity to overcome the handicap 
secretly taken by the Germans and had produced French 
guns which equalled and often surpassed those of the enemy. 
A notable instance was the 75, a light field piece invented by 
a French officer, which critics agreed was the most effective 
weapon of the war. 

To avert the first rush on Paris, when German outriders 
penetrated the suburbs in 1914, residents of the city and 
French people generally relate with pride how every man, 
soldier and civilian alike, was rushed to the front in taxis, 
motor buses, barges, private automobiles and every available 
thing on wheels which the army commandeered. 

This hodge-podge force of patriots, known as the "Taxi 
Army," checked the enemy tide and held the line as their 
trained comrades did unwaveringly for more than four 

73 



74 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

years thereafter. Too much praise cannot be given the 
French army for its bravery and sacrifice. There was no 
abler or more stoical army in the world. 

The slaughter of infantry continued on both sides in 
spite of the stupendous massing of artillery. Into this 
human crusher went our doughboys from the United States 
as fearlessly as any of the European veterans, and the going 
was hell. There is no other word for it. 

That accounted for the heavy casualties in the infantry 
units of all countries, heavier than in any other branch of 
the service, which is proof of the terrible ordeals undergone 
by the doughboys of the Yankee Division. 

Take the casualties of the 101st Infantry, commanded 
by Colonel Edward L. Logan. More than 9,000 men passed 
through the Boston regiment alone in order to keep it at war 
strength of 3,600 — a graphic index of casualties suffered 
by foot troops in all American combat divisions. 

Of the seventy-eight officers killed in the Yankee Divi- 
sion, twenty-four were attached to the 101st Infantry — 
more than 30 per cent. The number of enlisted men killed 
in the Yankee Division was 1,652, of which 332 were from 
Colonel Logan's regiment — 20 per cent of the total. 

The total of men severely wounded in the division was 
3,624, of which 527, one-seventh, were members of the 
Boston regiment; division total of slightly wounded, 2,819; 
101st Infantry, 500; total number gassed in division, 3,363, 
of which 965 were in the 101st Infantry. There were in the 
regiment men from Montana, California, North Carolina 
and Georgia, and every one was a Yankee Division en- 
thusiast and booster. 

I have not attempted to describe in detail or chrono- 
logically the various battles in which the Yankee Division 
participated, because actions were too much alike. Every 
engagement was prefaced by intensive artillery preparation, 
following which the doughboys attacked in waves. The 
technique of modern battles would not interest the average 
reader. It was only in the spectacular performance of an 



DOUGHBOYS ARE "GUN FODDER" 75 

individual or a unit that a feature developed worth chroni- 
cling for lay readers. 

Between actions both sides harassed each other with 
artillery and there were frequent patrols and raids. Com- 
manding officers in ordering many raids realized that men 
were to be sacrificed. It was necessary that men die pene- 
trating enemy lines in order to gain information and es- 
pecially, by capturing or killing a few Germans, to identify 
organizations in doubtful positions. Youngsters who went 
to graves carrying out this hazardous and thankless work 
were among the greatest martyrs in the war. 

The 101st Infantry was organized August 21, 1917, the 
nucleus from the old Massachusetts "Fighting" Ninth, 
with a filling to war strength from the old Fifth Massachu- 
setts, a crack National Guard organization which Colonel 
Willis W. Stover commanded on the Mexican border in a 
manner creditable to himself and his men. The Fifth 
Regiment bemoaned the splitting up of their command, but 
long before they entered the fighting line they had one 
purpose — to keep the colors of the 101st Infantry among 
the highest on the Western front, and they did it. 

The patriotic members of the Ninth Regiment Asso- 
ciates, later the " Hundred and First Associates," who 
contributed such a generous fund for the welfare of the 
newly constructed regiment overseas, were more than repaid 
by the valor and the sacrifices of the men in Colonel 
Logan's command. If they could have seen the benefits 
of their funds, their hearts would have swelled with satis- 
faction. There was not an American regiment in France 
so well cared for in the line of extras. The men looked 
it and acted it. It made them better fighters. 

President James J. Phelan, the well-known Boston 
banker, and his colleagues helped, in a larger and more vital 
manner than they may have realized, to win battles, because 
they were instrumental in preserving the morale of the men 
of the regiment. 



76 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

I hope former Congressman Joseph H. O'Neil, Mr. Rat- 
shesky, Mr. Endicott, "Dan" Coakley, "Jack" Heyer, 
Congressmen Gallivan and Fitzgerald and all the good women 
of the auxiliary will not blush too violently at this praise, 
because it is gospel truth. 

The women were just as loyal supporters as the men at 
home; in fact, the mothers, sisters, wives and sweethearts 
will probably never know what a power for good they were. 
I cabled a story from the Western front one day to the 
effect that the mothers and the rest of the women folks at 
home formed the pluckiest and mightiest line in Uncle Sam's 
army. 

The 101st Infantry was the first National Guard unit to 
leave the shores of the United States for France. It left the 
camp at South Framingham Sept. 6, 1917, and sailed from 
Hoboken, N. J., the next day. Congressman Gallivan, 
known because of his recent activities as "the greatest Con- 
gressman in the A. E. F.," and former Mayor Fitzgerald, 
the late Postmaster William F. Murray, John Heyer of the 
Federal Trust Company, Lieutenant Malcolm Logan and 
Theodore Logan, brothers of Colonel Logan, and Henry C. 
Lyons of the Boston Elevated Company, whose son, Ser- 
geant Doren S. Lyons, made good in the outfit, were among 
those of us who followed the transports down to the Statue 
of Liberty in a fleet launch, and Colonel Logan and Captain 
(now Major) "Tommy" Murphy, former adjutant, waved 
us a farewell from the bridge of the first transport to leave. 

I joined the outfit later in the Toul sector in France and 
was present at every fight in which the Yankee Division and 
every other American division was engaged along the 
Western front. 

As a fully accredited correspondent with the American 
and British armies, my credentials gave me a roving com- 
mission which permitted me to see every type of troops in 
action from the English channel in Belgium to Switzerland. 
I saw the Belgians "kick off" after guarding as important 
and difficult a line, even if short, as there was on the Western 



DOUGHBOYS ARE "GUN FODDER' 11 

front. They had stood two years in water and mud waiting 
for the chance, and, when King Albert on that September 
day addressed them and gave the word, they struck the 
Boches with the speed and fury of tigers. 

King Albert had been cautioned by his staff officers that 
it was hazardous for him to lead his men, but he did, and 
when he told them to strike for "king and country" there 
was a storm of cheers. They shattered the German lines 
that day, and before nightfall had advanced about eight 
kilometers through a terrain that was little better than a 
series of swamps. I saw the British sweep forward in a 
series of brilliant victories. I saw the Australians, the New 
Zealanders, the South Africans, the Canadians, the Scotch, 
Irish and English troops in action, not forgetting the Senga- 
lese in turbans. 

I saw the Italians and the Portuguese fight and the 
French armies and their swarthy colonists, units embracing 
almost every type of fighting man in the world, in native 
garb, the fearless warriors from Algeria and from the desert. 
I stood one day near Rheims and watched English, Scotch, 
French and Italian batteries in action on one hill. It was 
a striking scene, typifying allied effort in a single artillery 
position. 

I witnessed the fighting of Yankee Division units at 
Apremont Woods and Seicheprey, the first engagements 
approaching battles fought by any organization in the 
American Expeditionary Force, but both little better than 
raids in the light of later operations. I was with the First 
Division when it took Cantigny, and went into the Marne 
with the Marines when they and the Ninth and Twenty- 
third Infantry Regiments, all forming the Second Division, 
leap-frogged the tired French and checked the Germans' 
second drive on Paris. 

After that I reported every American battle, and had the 
good fortune to be with the Twenty-seventh and Thirtieth 
American Divisions when they helped the British smash the 
Hindenburg line in the north. After the armistice we ac- 



78 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

credited correspondents advanced with the American Army 
of Occupation, and I remained in Germany three months. 

I mention these things and inject the personal elements 
reluctantly at this stage of my series for a purpose. Certain 
correspondents, and especially certain foreigners, showed a 
tendency to devote more space to what they had done than 
to the troop achievements. I always felt that the reading 
public was more interested in their soldiers and what they 
did, and considered that the mere telling of a development 
or battle, the fact that you saw and wrote about it, was 
proof sufficient that you had been there. 

My purpose in briefly outlining the battles which I re- 
ported as an eye-witness is to show that I was in a position 
to judge when I say that there was no better fighting ma- 
terial, no more gallant or aggressive shock troops on the 
Western front than those contributed by Boston and New 
England. 

I saw them all in action and I talked with experts from 
various countries. With our roving commissions, we were 
not tied to any single division or compelled to wait until the 
fighting came to it. but on the contrary were obliged, as 
accredited men, to follow the fighting wherever an American 
unit was engaged. In this way accredited war correspond- 
ents saw more fighting than generals or others who were 
confined to certain zones or divisional areas and who had to 
wait until the storm broke in their territory. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Logan's Front Line Service 

DThe history of the Fifty-second Infantry Brigade 
as detailed by General Cole is similar in a general 
way to that of the Fifty-first Brigade, made up of 
the 101st and the 102d Infantry Regiments. 

Brigadier-General Peter E. Traub commanded the 
Fifty-first Brigade when the Yankee Division went to 
France, and Brigadier-General George H. Shelton, for- 
merly a colonel in command of the 104th Infantry, com- 
manded the brigade when it came home. 

In the ravines and shell-torn slopes of the fortified hills 
north of Verdun the 101st Infantry suffered 1,400 casual- 
ties, losing fourteen officers in one day. These figures are 
an index of the severity of the fighting in that sector. 

No regimental commander in the American Expe- 
ditionary Force had a longer front line service than did 
Colonel Edward L. Logan. The so-called "Boston regi- 
ment" remained in the trenches in the Chemin-des-Dames 
from Feb. 5 until March 18, and spent ninety days in the 
trenches in the Toul sector, from April 1 until June 29. On 
July 1 the 101st Regiment, with other Yankee Division 
units, started moving to Meaux to take up positions in the 
Chateau Thierry sector. 

The men heard they were going to parade in Paris July 4, 
and word was circulated that they would camp near the 
famous city. They were as delighted as school children 
when the train ran close enough to Paris to see the Eiffel 
Tower. 

But all hands were doomed to another disappointment, 
the bitterest of all, because the division was in for hard 

79 



80 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

fighting at the Marne instead of being on the eve of the 
long-prayed for but oft-postponed rest. Panton was the 
nearest the Yankee Division got to Paris, but instead of 
detraining there trains were shifted to Chateau Thierry. 

Relieving the Second Division, which had won undying 
glory for stopping the German drive on Paris, the Yankee 
Division kept the pace set by the Second Division and by 
its sturdy fighting on the Marne front won some of its 
brightest laurels. 

When the Twenty-sixth went into position in the Marne 
sector it formed the only barrier to the enemy between 
there and Paris and it helped to shatter the last savage blow 
of the Germans in that direction. The division remained 
in that sector until July 29. Losses were heavy. 

On Sept. 7 the 101st Infantry relieved a French regi- 
ment in the St. Mihiel sector and remained there thirty-one 
days, until Oct. 7. Two days later it went with other 
division units to the sector northwest of Verdun, where the 
bitterest battles of the war were fought. 

Colonel Logan's regiment won forty-three Distinguished 
Service Crosses and thirty Croix de Guerre, and more 
American decorations were expected. 

The winners of Croix de Guerre were Lieutenant- 
Colonel John D. Murphy, Major Christopher Lee, Chap- 
lains Lyman Rollins and Osias Boucher, Corporals Frank 
Hurley, S. Miller and C. Seitz and Private E. Larkin of E 
Company; Lieutenant Harold K. Davison, Sergeant 
Timothy J. Sullivan, Corporal Homer J. Wheaton and 
Bugler Thomas H. Hammond of G Company, known as the 
Emmett Guards; Lieutenant George F. Davis, Sergeant 
George F. Dever, Sergeant Frank J. Hurley and Privates 
Harold J. Eldredge and Leo J. Lipsie of H Company; 
Private George N. Mclnnis of I Company; Sergeant Ed- 
ward Brady, Corporal James F. O'Toole and Privates John 
J. McKenzie, Adelbert Bresnahan and Herbert Bailey of K 
Company; Corporal E. B. McCarthy, Corporal Trafton and 
Private E. Shea of L Company; Sergeant Oscar Durand of 



LOGAN'S FRONT LINE SERVICE 81 

M Company; Sergeant H. C. R. Mott and Privates Jesse S. 
Ferry and Frank Barry of the Medical Corps. 

Distinguished Service Crosses awarded in the 101st In- 
fantry went to: Lieutenant-Colonel John D. Murphy, Major 
Thomas F. Foley, Major Christopher Lee, Lieutenant 
Frank P. O'Neil, Corporal Holga Jager and Private Charles 
Miller of A Company; Sergeant Joseph De Cota and Private 
Benjamin Yobivitiz of B Company; Sergeant Westra Hig- 
gins, Sergeant Daniel O'Connor and Private J. J. Boughan 
of C Company; Private Adolph Holtz of D Company; 
Sergeant Francis McGowan, Sergeant John L. Clabby, 
Sergeant Joseph W. Casey, Privates Law J. Kelly, Dan 
J. Clasby and Fritz Hedlund of F Company, Hedlund 
having the extra oak leaf decoration; Sergeant Doug- 
las Ross of K Company; Sergeant Grady, Corporal 
Austin J. Kelly and Private Rounds of L Company; Corporal 
Victor K. Dubois and Corporal James Ducette of Head- 
quarters Company, and Private John Mayne, Medical unit. 

The list of 101st Infantry officers killed and the sectors 
where they fell follow: 

CHEMIN-DES-DAMES 

Second Lieutenant John M. Flenniken, Springfield, Mass. 

TOUL SECTOR 

First Lieutenant Lynn H. Harriman, Concord, N. H. 

CHATEAU THIERRY-PAS FINI SECTOR AND 
AISNE-MARNE OFFENSIVE 

Captain Francis M. Leahy, Lawrence, Mass. 
Captain William P. Fitzgerald, Worcester, Mass. 
First Lieutenant Lawrence J. Flaherty, Revere, Mass. 
First Lieutenant James J. Mansfield, Concord, Mass. 
First Lieutenant Donald E. Dunbar, Springfield, Mass. 

ST. MIHIEL OFFENSIVE 

Captain Ralph E. Donnelly, Worcester, Mass. 
Captain Joseph W. McConnell, Roxbury, Mass. 
First Lieutenant Chester Winans, Tuckahoe, N. Y. 



82 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Second Lieutenant Frank D. Hazeltine, Belfast, Me. 
Second Lieutenant Andrew J. Gerdin, Chicago, 111. 

BEAUMONT-ORNE OFFENSIVE VERDUN 

Captain Robert Hayes, Dorchester, Mass. 

Captain Paul E. Kittredge, Lowell, Mass. 

Captain Stephen T. Schoonmaker, Teanick, N. J. 

First Lieutenant Harry E. Hanley, Boston, Mass. 

First Lieutenant Frank Y. Vanschoonhaven, Saratoga, N. Y. 

Second Lieutenant Jeremiah W. Sullivan, Boston, Mass. 

Second Lieutenant Ralph W. Lane, Brockton, Mass. 

Second Lieutenant George W. Foster, Cuttingsville, Vt. 

Second Lieutenant Edgar D. Bascomb, Wollaston, Mass. 

Second Lieutenant Rowland S. Dodge, Pawtucket, R. I. 

Captain Francis M. Leahy of Lawrence and Lieutenant 
Lawrence J. Flaherty, brother of Maffit Flaherty, the 
Revere life guard, were killed by the same shell in Trugny 
Woods. When Major (then Captain) Arthur F. Hanson, 
an architect and builder from Waltham, sprang to com- 
mand and asked Captain Leahy if there were any special 
orders, Leahy gasped: 

"Take them forward, Arthur. The command is for- 
ward. Don't bother about me." 

The spirit of self-effacement exhibited by Captain Leahy 
was that of a true patriot. He was aggressive and fearless 
and was loved by his men. Lieutenant Flaherty was 
courageous and efficient. The Park Commissioners have 
named a square in his memory in Revere. Hanson, a top 
sergeant on the border, won a major's commission and a 
Distinguished Service Cross. He developed into one of the 
ablest and most conspicuous soldiers in the division. There 
wasn't any place too hazardous for Hanson to lead his men 
if orders directed. 

Another fighter and a great favorite was Captain William 
P. Fitzgerald of Worcester. "Billy" was killed in Vaux, 
July 14. He had repulsed a strong German force in front 
of him and was corraling prisoners. He and his top ser- 



LOGAN'S FRONT LINE SERVICE 83 

geant lined up about twenty Boches, and as Captain Fitz- 
gerald turned to round up some more, one in the file just 
formed drew an automatic revolver and killed "Billy" in- 
stantly. The bullet entered the base of the brain. 

The top sergeant was so infuriated that he shot the assail- 
ant dead and killed several others before comrades could 
quiet him. Fitzgerald's death occasioned sorrow. He was 
a two-fisted soldier. Chaplain O'Connor and everybody 
spoke highly of him. 

Captain James F. Duane of Clinton, a fellow townsman 
of United States Senator David I. Walsh, had a meteoric 
career overseas. He went over a sergeant, in five months 
he was a second lieutenant, in another five months he was a 
first lieutenant and three months later won captain's bars. 
There wasn't a more rapid advancement in the division. 
"Jim" worshiped his mother. That love and her prayers 
carried him through tight places, he said. 

Captain Duane led the Clinton company. He had been 
commanding I Company, formerly commanded by "Chris" 
Lee. Shortly before the armistice Captain Duane learned 
that the Germans in front of him were withdrawing. He 
attacked so suddenly and savagely that he trapped a whole 
company of Germans, an officer and sixty-four privates, and 
advanced his line four kilometers. 

He did all this on his own initiative. That was how 
rapidly the lads from New England developed into first- 
class soldiers and showed what sterling material for officers 
often came from the ranks. On several occasions sergeants 
and corporals led the remnants of battalions in the Yankee 
Division. 

Men told with pride how Captain Vincent C. Breen, 
wounded in the leg and shoulder, told his comrades not to 
bother about him, but to push ahead, while he endeavored 
to dress his wounds himself. 

Captain Robert I. Hayes of Dorchester, Captain Ralph 
E. Donnelly of Worcester and Captain Stephen Schon died 
like heroes. Captain Hayes was struck while leading a 



84 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

battalion. He was promoted from lieutenant for bravery. 
Captain Donnelly had risen from sergeant and was always 
in the thick of the fight. His men admired him. 

Everybody in the 101st swore by Lieutenant-Colonel 
John C. Green way, the former Yale athlete and member of 
Roosevelt's "Rough Riders." They referred to him as "a 
slashing soldier." He went home early, badly wounded. 

"Tommy" Murphy, Colonel Logan's adjutant in France 
and on the border, won promotion from captain to major and 
weathered the argument like the soldier he was until in- 
jured in a collision of motor cycles. An aviator's car ran 
into Tommy's side car and he went home for treatment. 
Regimental headquarters didn't seem the same without 
him. Although his left arm was in a plaster cast and had 
been operated on a few days before, Tommy rode a horse in 
the final parade of the division and finished without mishap. 
That was a sample of his grit. 

"Wouldn't have missed it if both arms were out of com- 
mission and I had to drive with my teeth," said he. 

Arthur W. Desmond jumped from lieutenant to captain. 
He was regimental personnel officer and a keen executive. 
Captain George Irving of Clinton, commanding B Company, 
was another credit to the regiment. Captain Martin Ken- 
neally, a Boston fireman, who had a son in the service, 
did tip-top work in the division quartermaster's. Jack 
Earle, another Boston fireman, became a lieutenant, and 
was sent home suffering from gas poison. He is wearing a 
fireman's uniform again. Sergeant James Kelley of Worces- 
ter won a lieutenant's commission in G Company. 

There was not a more popular man in the regiment than 
Major Harry C. Martin of Longmeadow, near Springfield, 
formerly of the old Second Infantry, who succeeded Major 
Bogan as regimental surgeon. The excellent physical 
condition of the men was due largely to Major Martin's in- 
defatigable efforts and so was the low sick rate on the U. S. 
transport America, which brought Colonel Logan and his 
staff and regiment home. Major Martin was a glutton for 



LOGAN'S FRONT LINE SERVICE 85 

work and was popular with the men. The large number of 
wounded gives an idea of the magnitude of his job. 

He had an able assistant in Major Frank Piper of Han- 
cock street, Boston. Major Piper hiked it with a pack like 
the doughboys. He took all kinds of chances. 

Captain Edward M. Guild of Beacon street, cousin of 
the late Governor Guild, was intelligence officer in Colonel 
Logan's regiment and he made good. He carried out 
hazardous missions with success. He was immensely popu- 
lar. Another Boston boy who showed efficiency and bravery 
as a machine gun officer was Lieutenant George H. Lyman, 
son of the former collector of the Port of Boston. 

The French soldiers called the Yankee Division "The 
Phalanx of Aces" and christened the 101st Infantry "Lo- 
gan's Raiders." 



CHAPTER XII. 
McConnell Dies Leading Men 

BThe 101st Infantry landed at St. Nazaire Sept. 
21, 1917, and was conveyed to a training camp in 
freight cars, labelled "40 hommes-8 chevaux," 
meaning that either beast or man, to the number 
stipulated, might travel in the cars, which the men chris- 
tened "Pullmans." 

A doughboy's tabloid description of the journey to 
France was given to me by Private Joseph Coen of No. 5 
Pine Street, Manchester, Mass. "Joe" was a member of 
Company I. He was such a good and tidy soldier that he 
became orderly to Chaplain O'Connor, after the armistice, 
a job which his comrades called "Sky Pilot's secretary." 
Said Joe, as he fed the open fire in the padre's room in a 
monastery at Eccomoy, on a day that was biting cold: 

"All we fellows thought about was the big ship that we 
were to travel on. Crossing the ocean was to be a treat — 
something most of us never expected to experience only in 
the movies. We didn't think of the dangers ahead or any- 
thing. We were like a lot of kids waiting for the tour. We 
were packed in like sardines below decks, and say, you 
ought to have seen us the second day out. Talk about 
seasickness! We didn't think much about the romance of 
an ocean voyage then. 

"We felt like asking the captain to stop the ship. But 
in a few days we were strong and hungry and thinking of 
submarines. We never knew the ocean was so big and wet. 
We thought we'd never see land again, but one night when 
we had been at sea almost a month, it seemed, we saw a 
flash, and, if it hadn't been for a warning given by officers 

86 



McCONNELL DIES LEADING MEN 87 

with pistols drawn, who told us the slightest noise might 
mean a torpedo, we would have yelled our heads off. It was 
the beacon off St. Nazaire. We anchored there, it seemed 
an eternity. We thought we were safe, but learned later it 
was a dangerous position. A U-boat might have binged 
the tub and got us all before we entered the harbor. 

"We didn't sleep much that night. We could hardly 
wait to get on the dock. It looked like a good town. The 
houses were different and the small boats had red and tan 
sails, and the men and women in wooden shoes, and the cops 
carrying daggers instead of billies, and the trolley cars with 
upper decks on them and big signs like a fence at a ball game, 
and when we reached the train, we saw some officers getting 
in swell cars with funny side doors and one of our non-coms 
said that was the kind of train we were to travel in, but he 
was only kidding. 

"We walked and walked along the tracks and came to 
freight cars marked 'hommes or chevaux' and in we crawled 
on the straw and we looked and felt like cattle arriving at 
the Brighton stock yards. That trip lasted two days and 
two nights and perhaps we weren't glad to finish the Cook's 
tour! 

"Then the fellows were anxious to mix it with the 
Heinies. We felt queer the first time we entered the front 
lines. When the first shells cracked your blood felt funny, 
but you soon got over that. Now when you look back at 
it it seems like a nightmare and you wonder how you came 
through. All a doughboy had to do was to carry his home 
on his back and fight. You ask fellows in other com- 
panies for Dick or Billy and they tell you they didn't come 
along — that they're back with others on the hills. Gee, 
but a load are sleeping over there. Strange, though, isn't 
it? Fellows you knew buried in France by the hundreds. 
And the war over! That seems funny, too. 

"I knew one. He was my bunkie. Gee, but he was a 
corker and game. I'll never forget Johnny Coyle if I live 
to be a hundred. He came from Brighton. His father has 



88 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

a city job. I guess the family is comfortable. Johnny's 
dad used to write swell letters. They always cheered both 
of us. They made Johnny gamer. He was only a kid, 
about eighteen (the speaker being little older) . I remember 
one letter Johnny's father wrote. He said Johnny couldn't 
fool him when he tried to write pleasant things. His 
father said he knew pretty well what the gaff must be and 
he said, 'My son, if the time ever comes when you have to 
make the big sacrifice, do it like a man.' He didn't know 
how near one of us was to it. 

"Johnny was a good kid. He had principles which he 
wouldn't break for anything. He prayed — we all prayed— 
but where Johnny Coyle was different was in smoking 
cigarettes. He never smoked before he came over here, 
and then only two a day, not one more on his life. 

"Johnny and I had a falling out one day over a slicker. 
We didn't speak and that was the day a shell got him. You 
can imagine my feelings. I felt as if I had lost a brother. 
You are almost more attached to a bunkie than to a brother. 
The toughest things you went through are the things you're 
proudest of now. I often think of Johnny Coyle and his 
two cigarettes a day, and our narrow escapes, and what he 
gave for his country." 

The Rev. M. J. O'Connor, formerly chaplain of the 101st 
Infantry, later ranking chaplain of the Yankee Division, 
came in, pulled a chair to the fire and picked up the thread 
where his orderly had broken off. I had made a flying trip 
from the Army of Occupation in Germany to see my friends 
in the New England division. Eccomoy is a quaint farming 
village, with the usual ancient church fronting on a square 
that in dimensions would do credit to New York. The 
headquarters of the Yankee Division there were eight hours' 
ride by train from Brest. 

The village squares are used as market places. The 
rural communities in France have developed to a high 
degree the system of direct trading between producer and 
consumer. Stalls are set up like magic and the peasants 



McCONNELL DIES LEADING MEN 89 

drive in from all directions and make market day a semi- 
holiday. It was amusing and picturesque to see soldiers 
from home strolling between the open-air stalls watching 
the live rabbits and hens in crates and bargaining with 
sympathetic old women for such extras as apples, radishes, 
and onions, eggs and cheese. 

Rooms were scarce in the village. I had to sleep in the 
monastery, in a whitewashed room that resembled a cell 
in cheerlessness and size. There was a large crucifix on the 
wall and two plain chairs and an old secretary and a book- 
case stuffed with musty religious volumes and an open 
fireplace which cast fantastic shadows. Every now and 
then you heard the slippered tread of a monk and the rattle 
of his beads in the hallway. It was raining and the wind 
was high. 

I had heard how Chaplain O'Connor had been discovered 
by General Edwards one day, coat off and sleeves furled, 
digging graves. The division commander asked him why 
he didn't leave that work for the enlisted men, and Chap- 
lain O'Connor replied that they had all been busy fighting 
and that he desired to bury certain bodies right away. A 
battle was in progress at the time. 

I asked Chaplain O'Connor about the incident after he 
finished stirring the embers. He smiled and then looked 
terribly solemn, for him, and said: 

"The only comfort left for the parents and relatives was 
the assurance that their boy had a prompt and proper burial. 
When I wrote to the mothers how bravely their sons had 
died and how they had all the rights of the church, it lessened 
their grief, judging from the letters I received in reply, and 
I want to tell you the most gratifying reward an army chap- 
lain received were those letters of thanks from saddened 
households. 

"The army chaplains did good work over here and the 
clergymen of all denominations attached to the various units 
of the Yankee Division were as industrious and brave as any 
of them. Some of the chaplains were decorated for gallantry 



90 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

in rescuing and administering to the wounded under fire. 
Chaplain Danker, who had won a Croix de Guerre, was 
killed by a shell. The men were fond of the chaplains. 
The duties of the chaplains were arduous and dangerous at 
times. 

"There was always something to do. I had just been 
hearing confessions and then I went to the Knights of 
Columbus recreation room to censor letters. You should 
have seen the stacks of post cards and letters. One young- 
ster wrote thirty letters and cards. Since the armistice the 
mail has increased because the men have more time and 
feel more like writing. 

"Some of the letters are amusing. Same thing over and 
over again. 'How's everybody at home? I'm well. Hope 
you are the same.' That's about the tone of the average, 
though some of the enlisted men write mighty interesting 
letters. Others might as well have a stereotyped form and 
just add a new date because their letters don't vary in a 
detail. I know of a squad who pool their letters, that is 
to say, they get Sergeant Major Prout or somebody else 
who is expert on a typewriter to strike off a bunch of dupli- 
cates and the same formula does for all, with the exception 
of date and names that are easily inserted. You can't beat 
them. Sergeant Prout of Quincy invented this scheme. 

"But the doughboy is a wonder. He was made of the 
right stuff. I never saw or read about or expected to 
witness such stoicism and pluck as was shown by the rank 
and file. 

"They bore their wounds like men. They were patient. 
They died like true soldiers and Americans. It was a 
pleasure and privilege to report their deeds of valor to their 
parents and friends. 

"General Edwards told me one day that the death of 
Captain Joseph W. McConnell, the well-known Boston 
lawyer, commander of Company A, had a peculiar effect on 
him. He said it impressed him in an unusual manner and 
that he could not get it off his mind. Our division com- 



McCONNELL DIES LEADING MEN 91 

mander and all the men of the 101st Regiment and every- 
body who knew him thought a lot of Joe. He died a soldier's 
death, leading his company in the St. Mihiel drive. A 
fragment of shell pierced his neck. There actually was the 
trace of a smile on his lips, death came so suddenly. Joe 
was always smiling and cracking jokes to brace up his men. 

"He was one of the coolest and best soldiers in the 
Yankee Division. You couldn't phase or rattle him. I 
remember he bought fine new underwear, and, the morning 
he died, put on a suit of it, remarking to me in jest, Tf the 
Huns get me today, Father, they'll get me clean.' We 
buried him in that suit of underwear. We had quite a hunt 
for his body. My orderly was the first to find it. Joe was 
always immaculate in his appearance. He was clean in 
body and soul. 

"He was a big loss to the 101st Regiment and to the 
Yankee Division. He had acted as battalion commander 
at times. We all miss him. He was married just before 
we came over. I looked upon Captain McConnell as a 
model young man. 

"Before the men of Colonel Logan's regiment went into 
battle they would go to confession and receive communion 
by the hundreds. One morning more than a thousand 
knelt at communion. It was a stirring sight. 

"When they went in at Chateau Thierry, under heavy 
shell fire in the dark, I stood at the crossroads and blessed 
them as they passed. We had arranged it earlier and every 
Catholic breathed an act of contrition as they agreed they 
would. Next day I was about among the dead and wounded, 
for many brave lads fell that night. The men were devout. 
Their morale was high and their courage and patriotism 
irresistible. They beat the Germans wherever and whenever 
they met them." 

Major William McCarthy said: 

"Joe McConnell and I were together the night before we 
went in at St. Mihiel. We had a bang-up feed at midnight 
and we kidded each other about it. We said we'd have one 



92 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

good banquet before Fritz got us. Just before zero hour 
we started out. We shook hands and wished each other 
luck. I never saw Joe again. I refused to look at his body. 
I wanted to remember him as he was that night in the 
dugout. 

"Joe was one great little fellow. Gosh, how he looked 
forward to letters from his bride. When he answered them 
I noticed that he blew a puff of cigarette smoke into the 
envelope before he sealed it. He said his wife had written 
that when she detected the odor of cigarette smoke in his 
letter it seemed to bring him nearer. That's how well I 
knew Joe McConnell at the front." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Those "Gypsy Batteries" 

••■^P^Too little has been written about the American 
\r I artillery. No branch of the American Expedition- 

| M ary Forces developed greater efficiency and effec- 
tiveness. 

The American gunners eagerly absorbed all of the fine 
points of the art under the instruction of French experts and 
soon astonished their tutors. 

No artillerymen could hope to develop greater accuracy 
than the French in the handling of 75s and 155s, but the 
Americans did develop greater speed by loading on the recoil 
and surprised the enemy because of their rapidity of fire. 

I talked with Boche prisoners, who told me that the 
American rifle fire was so brisk and heavy that it had been 
mistaken for concentrated machine gun fire by the Ger- 
mans, and that the Yankee gunners became so speedy in the 
use of 75s that the enemy spread the rumor that the Ameri- 
cans were using a "three-inch machine gun." 

Every American was amused when a wail went up in the 
enemy ranks that the Americans were "inhuman" because 
they had equipped some of the troops with old-fashioned 
shotguns, which, by the way, some of the doughboys em- 
ployed with deadly effect at close range. 

"Can you beat it?" drawled a Vermonter one day. 
"Fritz introduced all the horrors of war, gas and air raids on 
non-combatants and ugly shrapnel, and now he's kicking 
because some of the Yanks are using birdshot on him. 
What's birdshot compared to a G-I, eh, fellows?" 

French artillery instructors told me the American artil- 
lerymen took to the science like ducks to water, and it was. 
not long before they were giving the Hun fits. 

93 



H THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Of all the American artillery units, none attained a higher 
battle perfection than the Fifty-first Artillery Brigade of 
the Yankee Division. This was admitted in American and 
French artillery circles. I heard nothing but praise for the 
Twenty-sixth Division batteries. I heard officers in the 
First and Second and the Forty-second Divisions compli- 
ment their work; in fact, I never heard anybody knock the 
outfit that Brigadier-General Sherburne of Brookline 
brought home in the pink of condition. 

The Fifty-first Artillery Brigade was the first to intro- 
duce a "rolling barrage," and the first also to operate what 
gunners termed "gypsy batteries," guns run into the open, 
under cover of darkness, to exposed positions from which 
they blazed at the enemy, and as quickly withdrew. This 
innovation puzzled the Heinies, who laid down savage bar- 
rages in vain on positions that had been only temporary, 
after the elusive weapons of the New Englanders had 
wrought the desired havoc at close range and had returned 
to camouflaged positions. 

Officers figure that the New England batteries pumped 
upward of 1,000,000 shells of the 75 calibre and between 
400,000 and 500,000 155s at the enemy. 

When it is recalled that each 75 costs about $13 and each 
155 about $48, one isn't surprised to hear that the Fifty- 
first Brigade of Artillery of the Yankee Division hurled 
approximately $25,000,000 worth of shells at the Germans, 
and, we might add, with telling accuracy. 

General Edwards had this to say about his artillery 
units : 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. 
FRANCE, 

October 24, 1918. 
General Orders No. 93. 

EXTRACT 

1. To the artillery of the Twenty-sixth Division is due my 
expression of admiration for its efficiency and aggressive fighting 
qualities and for its indefatigable support of our fine infantry. 



THOSE " GYPSY BATTERIES " 95 

Artillery can desire no higher tribute than the conscious fact 
itIHAS GAINED THE CONFIDENCE, RELIANCE AND 
THANKS OF THE INFANTRY. 

2. During more than eight months of fighting service the spirit 
of loyalty displayed by every officer and man of the Fifty-first 
Artillery Brigade toward his duty, toward the Yankee Division and 
toward the division commander has been fine. 

3. The record of the Fifty-first Artillery Brigade in the second 
battle of the Marne is glorious. It went with, supported and pro- 
tected the infantry in its advance of eighteen and one-half kilo- 
meters by Chateau Thierry, and afterward, in succession, two 
other divisions in the advance from the Marne to the Vesle, for 
a period of eighteen days, between July 18 and August 4, with a 
gain of over forty kilometers. 

It is a record of which the entire division and our country may 
be proud. 

I congratulate and thank the artillery brigade of the Yankee 

Division * C. R. EDWARDS, 

Major-General, Commanding. 



After the infantry units of the Yankee Division had done 
their work in the Marne sector, by making a series of sharp 
gains and trouncing the Germans at every encounter, they 
were leap-frogged by the Forty-second, better known as the 
"Rainbow Division," which in turn was relieved by the 
Fourth Division. 

These are the divisions referred to in General Edwards' 
eulogy of the Yankee Division artillery, which continued to 
support them until August 4. General Edwards forgot to 
tell about the French division which the Yankee Division 
gunners supported also during that trying period. In fact, 
the Fifty-first Artillery Brigade had advanced so far in the 
support, first of the Twenty-sixth Division infantry and 
later that of the Forty-second, Fourth and a French di- 
vision, that it required a hike of two days to get back to the 
Marne. 

And General Edwards bestowed that commendation 
before another had taken command of the division and be- 
fore the artillery and the infantry of the Yankee Division 



96 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

had performed their almost superhuman service in the 
shell-torn hills north of Verdun in the heart-breaking battles 
that ended the war. 

The Fifty-first Artillery Brigade was made up of two 
Massachusetts regiments, the old First Regiment from Bos- 
ton, of which the crack Battery A was the basis, and the 
Second Corps Cadets from Salem, forming the 101st Regi- 
ment. 

The 102d Regiment was made up of three batteries from 
Merrimac valley — Lowell, Lawrence and Haverhill; also old 
Battery C of Lawrence, two batteries from Worcester built 
on old B Battery, and one battery from New Bedford. 

The 103d Regiment was made up of three batteries from 
Rhode Island, organized around Battery A of Providence, 
two batteries from Connecticut, one from Branford and one 
from Stamford, a platoon from New London and a battery 
from Manchester, N. H. A trench mortar battery was 
formed from the First Massachusetts Field Artillery. 

The 103d Regiment was filled to war strength by coast 
artillery troops from Massachusetts, Connecticut and 
Rhode Island. A troop of cavalry from the Rhode Island 
squadron formed a basis for headquarters company. The 
brigade staff was drawn from the three regiments and the 
new war brigade assembled at the old Second Cadets camp 
at Boxford, August 10, 1917. 

On July 28 Colonel Sherburne completed the organiza- 
tion of the 101st and 102d Regiments. General William 
Lassiter, then in England, subsequently became brigade 
commander, joining the brigade in France. 

A little bit of history not generally known is that Colonel 
Sherburne's regiment, the 101st Artillery, was at one time 
designated to join the Forty-second, but when it was dis- 
covered that the Yankee Division would beat the Rainbow 
across the 101st Artillery was kept within its home division. 

The 101st Field Artillery and the 101st Infantry sailed 
Sept. 9, 1917. The 101st Artillery went by way of Liver- 
pool and Southampton and Havre, arriving at Coetquidon, 



THOSE " GYPSY BA TTERIES " 97 

the French training camp, Sept. 15, where the other regi- 
ments of artillery— the 102d and 103d— joined it. The 
brigade remained in training until Feb. 1 when it joined the 
Twenty-sixth Division at Chemin-des-Dames. 

General (then Colonel) Sherburne's 101st Regiment 
fired the first shot of any National Guard unit, on Feb. 5, 
1918. The men of Battery A of Boston had the honor and 
Colonel Sherburne sent the shell to Governor McCall. 

On Feb. 22 the 101st Regiment celebrated Washington's 
Birthday, in 1918, by firing the first rolling barrage ever 
attempted by an American artillery unit during a successful 
raid carried out in the Chemin-des-Dames sector by the 
French and Americans. While occupying that sector the 
Fifty-first Brigade fired many borages in support of raids 
and repelling hostile attacks. 

t It left the Chemin-des-Dames sector March 19-21, 
withdrawing to a rest area. At that time the Germans 
launched an offensive, and the First Division was hurried 
to the front, near Cantigny, which it eventually captured, 
and the Twenty-sixth was hurriedly ordered to replace the 
First Division in the Toul sector. The Fifty-first Artillery 
Brigade hiked 175 miles, with one day's rest, to reach the 
Toul sector on time. It made the forced march in rain and 
mud, covering forty kilometers one day and two of thirty- 
five kilometers, regardless of horseflesh. 

Like the infantry, the Yankee Division artillery took up 
a division front instead of simply a brigade front that had 
been held by the First Division in the Toul sector. The 
first serious attack was made by 1,500 German storm troops 
in Apremont Woods, April 10, 11, 12 and 13. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Battery A's Historic Shot 

BAt the State House in Boston there is a shell case 
which has taken its place among the most precious 
of the historical relics of the Commonwealth. 
It is the case of a 75 — the first shell fired by a 
National Guard unit in the World War. 

The men of A Battery, 101st Artillery, had the honor of 
firing the opening shot at exactly 3.45 on the afternoon of 
Feb. 5, 1918, shortly after they had rolled their guns into 
position in the line in the Chemin-des-Dames sector. 

That night the 101st Infantry took its position in the 
front line. It was the first National Guard unit to enter 
the trenches. 

The Fifty-first Artillery Brigade helped repulse German 
raids, which were the only activities there. Infantrymen 
and artillerymen received their baptism in that sector and 
learned tricks of war and gained experience which proved 
valuable in other sectors where engagements steadily grew 
in magnitude. 

In the fights at Apremont Woods and Seicheprey, in the 
Toul sector, considered important at the time, as they were 
the most serious in which Americans had been involved, but 
really nothing but raids when compared to later operations, 
the artillery of the Yankee Division did splendid work. 

General Sherburne's diary shows that his batteries "laid 
down an intensive barrage" on April 10, which he entered 
as a "real day." 

On April 12 his batteries opened at 5.15 P. M. and kept 
at it until 3 A. M., hurling twelve barrages, "considerable 
fire," as he noted, adding, "An amusing feature was a report 
that day that we were shy of currycombs." 

98 



BATTERY A'S HISTORIC SHOT 99 

On April 13 three batteries of the 101st Regiment fired 
7,478 rounds, two complete caisson loads, in fourteen hours. 
The boys from New England toiled like beavers, peeled to 
shirts, without time to sleep or eat. In action their guns 
reminded one of historic paintings. I thought of the 
"Spirit of '76" and other traditions of our land as I watched 
them at work. As a final salvo that day they fired twelve 
rounds of shrapnel, the diary christening it "A wild day." 

In the Apremont Woods fight Colonel Sherburne per- 
formed a stunt that was the talk of the front. Anticipating 
an attack and seeing that things were troubled in a certain 
quarter, he loosened his batteries without a signal and played 
havoc with a wave of German shock troops. 

The 102d and 103d Artillery Regiments and trench mor- 
tar batteries worked sixty hours without sleep in the Seiche- 
prey fights. The strain was terrible. Guns were rushed 
forward in motor trucks. There was no definite line. 
Colonel Goodwin sent a battalion of men with guns to an 
exposed but effective position and they pounded the enemy 
hard. These exhibitions of resourcefulness were not un- 
common in the Yankee Division artillery units and they con- 
tributed to the general success. 

Six batteries fired 13,000 rounds in thirty-six hours in 
that fuss. General Sherburne claims the Seicheprey session 
was marked by one of the heaviest artillery concentrations 
that he encountered throughout the war. In the attack on 
Fleurry he took the 101st Regiment on a spectacular hike 
at night across the front and gained a new position without 
firing a shot or losing a man, and he recorded that as "A 
good gamble." 

In those two engagements— Apremont Woods and 
Seicheprey— the doughboys of the Yankee Division learned 
to place the utmost confidence in the support of the artillery 
units. I have heard the men of the 101st Infantry say they 
would face anything with the guns of the 101st Artillery 
supporting them. That team work characterized all 
branches of the service in the New England division. 



100 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

The Fifty-first Artillery Brigade helped repulse an attack 
on Xivray, June 16, with an effective barrage. The Ger- 
mans shelled division headquarters at Boucq. The artillery 
left the Toul sector June 28 and moved to Meaux, taking up 
positions in the rear of the "Pas Fini Sector," near Vaux 
and Torsey in the Chateau Thierry sector, relieving the 
artillery of the Second Division July 8. 

The brigade took part in the offensive that started July 
18. When the Thirty-second Brigade of infantry stormed 
and took the heights the artillery brigade laid a perfect roll- 
ing barrage which swept backward and forward with 
amazing accuracy. The artillery helped the infantry to 
straddle the Soissons-Chateau Thierry highway and in other 
operations in the Chateau Thierry region. 

On July 27 Colonel Sherburne was advanced to the 
rank of brigadier-general and ordered to take command of 
an artillery brigade in the Ninety-second Division, com- 
posed of colored troops. 

General Sherburne's war diary shows that "the stench 
of decayed human and horse flesh was terrible, July 21." 
On July 22 the Boche were held at Trugny and the infantry 
was fatigued. Machine gun action was intensive. The 
artillery "P. C.'s" (post commander) were in shell holes and 
hostile shells were falling thick. 

While operating in the Chateau Thierry sector the 
Yankee Division artillery supported units of four divisions 
— its own division, the Fourth and Forty-second Divisions, 
and a French division. This was an unusual performance. 
The batteries worked night and day. They were in that 
sector eighteen days, and withdrew August 4 to a rest area 
and General Aultman took command. 

On August 30 the artillery brigade started for Bar-le-Duc 
to take part in the St. Mihiel push. Batteries were placed 
in position Sept. 8, and the bombardment started early on 
the morning of Sept. 12. 

The advance of the Americans in that drive was so rapid 
that the artillery found it difficult to keep pace, but it 



BATTERY A'S HISTORIC SHOT 101 

did, in spite of the rain and mud. The batteries figured 
in the storming of the heights of the Meuse and re- 
mained in the Troy on sector until relieved Oct. 5. 

During this time each artillery regiment of the Yankee 
Division operated roving or "gypsy batteries" on the plains 
of the Woevre with great success. They fired forty shots 
per minute. Later the batteries took up their final posi- 
tions in the series of hills north of Verdun, where Brigadier- 
General Glassford took command and did splendid work. 
He had formerly been commander of the 103d Artillery. 

When the Yankee Division arrived home, Colonel 
Robert E. Goodwin of Concord, Mass., commanded the 
crack 101st Artillery Regiment. He took command after 
Colonel Sherburne was promoted and he handled the outfit 
with the skill of a veteran in the major battles following. 
Colonel Goodwin practices law in Boston. He was entitled 
to a large share of the credit for the upbuilding of the Bay 
State artillery. He had long been General Sherburne's 
right-hand man and was a captain and served as adjutant 
in the First Massachusetts Artillery Regiment on the Mexi- 
can border. He came along in leaps and bounds over there. 

You inquired for "Lieutenant So-and-So" and discovered 
that he was a captain or major and that majors a few 
months before were lieutenant-colonels or sporting eagles. 
Promotions won on the field of battle are worth while and 
there were many in the Yankee Division. I found "Dono" 
Minot, the former Harvard football star, acting as brigade 
adjutant and with major's leaves on his shoulders. He 
went over a lieutenant and was a top sergeant on the border. 

Another youngster who made good was Captain George 
A. Parker, son of former Attorney-General Herbert Parker, 
who organized and led C Battery of the 101st, than which 
there was no finer on the front. 

"Ben" Ticknor of Jamaica Plain, connected with the 
Houghton, MifBin Company of Boston, won a captain's 
commission and did tip-top work as adjutant of the 101st 
Artillery. Captain Lawrence Page, stable sergeant on the 



102 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Mexican border, won a Croix de Guerre at Chemin-des- 
Dames for valorous work with the first battalion of the 10£d 
Regiment. 

Captain William F. Howe, commanding C Battery of 
Lawrence, distinguished himself at Xivray, as did Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel John F. Herbert, formerly of B Battery, of 
Worcester, at St. Mihiel. Major Norman McLeod won a 
Distinguished Service Medal at St. Mihiel. The artillery 
units came in for their share of personal decorations and 
citations. Time and space do not permit mentioning them 
all. They have already been published in official lists sent 
out from Washington. 

First Lieutenant Paul H. Smith, artillery liaison officer 
with the 101st Regiment, repeatedly showed the stuff that 
was in him. A runner was killed and it was necessary to 
get back through a terrific enemy barrage. Smith did it 
and returned, reporting with a calmness that astonished his 
superiors. How he escaped injury or death was amazing. 
Lieutenant Lovell of Concord, Mass., came through with 
flying colors. His elder brother joined the air force. Both 
were privates in A Battery on the border. Sergeant Tobey 
became a lieutenant and a two-fisted fighter. They were all 
good enough especially to mention, but in praising the 
brigade you eulogize them all. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Keville's Ammunition Train 

BThe success of the Ammunition Train of the 
Yankee Division was summed up in two slogans, 
one coined by the men of the train, which was: 
"WE NEVER LOST AN AMMUNITION 
WAGON." 

The other was bestowed by the artillerymen and it was a 
fine tribute: "THE BATTERIES NEVER HAD TO 
WAIT FOR AMMUNITION." 

If you searched the records and interviewed every man 
in the Yankee Division you could not have hit upon a more 
direct definition of the zeal and eflSciency of Colonel 
William J. Keville and the men of his command. 

He served through the war as lieutenant-colonel, but 
always had the calibre of colonel. I was not surprised at his 
promotion. I expected it earlier. Nor was I surprised to 
hear the artillerymen and everybody else say such nice 
things about "Billy's" outfit. 

Regardless of obstacles and dangers, Colonel Keville 
and his men saw to it that the ammunition went through, 
whether the mud was hub deep or the highways had been 
almost effaced by shells and mines. Those of you who have 
not seen how the face of the earth was pitted and distorted 
by the furies of war cannot appreciate what it meant to get 
shells through in time to keep the batteries in action in the 
height of battle. If the Ammunition Train fell down, a 
battle might be lost. 

Colonel Keville was too good a soldier and organizer to 
permit such an emergency, no matter what the weather, or 
cost, or the fury of enemy artillery. 

103 



104 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

After a while it seemed to the drivers of ammunition 
trucks and wagons that the shells fired by the Yankee 
Division used to sing: 

"The batteries never have to wait for ammunition." 

It seemed strange to think of a Boston lawyer doing this 
important work in the biggest war in history, but the army 
was thus constituted and the men from civilian life made 
good in every department. "Big Bill" Mahoney, the well 
known undertaker of Lawrence, who advanced from lieuten- 
ant to captain for meritorious service, was Colonel Keville's 
adjutant. Both had all kinds of narrow escapes, as did the 
men. I knew of few more fortunate units. 

The casualties were astoundingly small, and though 
trucks were scarred by shrapnel and some were stalled and 
lamed at times, only one was flattened, and that by a falling 
wall. Every bit of it was stripped and used as spare parts. 
The men of the Ammunition Train learned the value of 
economy and tinkering and patching, to make everything 
count, early in their training, when equipment and material 
was pitifully scarce. There was a time when they had to 
make washers out of cardboard. While a handicap at the 
time, this condition developed their skill and resourceful- 
ness. It was not long before they could repair and build 
about anything. They simply had to do it. 

The Ammunition Train was organized in August with 
eighteen officers and 700 enlisted men from the First Ver- 
mont Infantry, and six officers and 234 enlisted men from 
the Massachusetts Coast Artillery. Lieutenant-Colonel 
Keville took command at Westfield, Massachusetts, August 
«7, 1917. 

The table of organization called for four motor truck 
companies and three horse battalions, two caissons for 
hauling 75 and three companies of limber combat- 
wagons for transporting small arms ammunition. Ninety 
per cent of the work was done by motor trucks, but the 
motor equipment was late in arriving. The promised 
English type of caisson never came. 



KEVILLE'S AMMUNITION TRAIN 105 

Artisans and mechanics were recruited from the Coast 
Artillery and they were crackerjacks. Vermonters accus- 
tomed to horses were put in charge of the animals. Colonel 
Keville longed for light trucks, of from one and one-half to 
two tons, instead of five-ton trucks used to haul "fire- 
works," as the signal rockets were called. 

Fifteen passenger cars and four sidecars were supposed 
to be assigned to each company, but all they got were three 
passenger cars and nine motorcycles. The light repair truck 
and spare automobile parts never materialized, either, but 
these handicaps were overcome by the ingenuity of the men. 

The men of the Ammunition Train were armed and 
drilled as infantry. Just before the train sailed forty white 
men and one colored man were rejected for flat feet and 
replacements were obtained Sept. 28. The train left West- 
field Oct. 2, and embarked on the R. M. S. Aurania Oct. 3. 
This ship was later torpedoed. 

Colonel Keville had command of the ship, which carried 
also twenty-four officers and men of the 104th Infantry, one 
officer and sixteen men from the Signal Corps, and 105 
officers and 145 enlisted men as casuals. The Aurania 
reached Liverpool Oct. 17, and on Oct. 21 the Ammunition 
Train traveled in a cattleboat to Havre and hiked six miles 
to Camp No. 1. They reached camp without baggage or a 
kitchen and used packing cases for filing organization papers 
and records. On Oct. 23 the Ammunition Train left Havre 
and went to a motor truck camp. 

American trucks came from St. Nazaire Oct. 29, about 
the time the Ammunition Train was attached to the Fifty- 
first Brigade of Artillery of the Yankee Division. B Com- 
pany hauled supplies. The Ammunition Train scheme was 
new in the American Army. Colonel Keville arranged a 
course of instruction which greatly increased the efficiency 
of his organization. He was most solicitous of the health 
of the men of his command. 

He insisted that night crews be provided with plenty of 
hot coffee, which cheered them up on long, dangerous hauls 



106 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

through the shelled area on many nights that it rained. 
Even in the heat of battle he worked his men in eight-hour 
shifts, contending that a sleepy driver was a menace to 
himself and everybody else. He accomplished this by equal 
distribution of labor, with the result that the health and 
morale of the train were excellent. 

Finally the train procured a French forge and set it up 
in a shed where repairing was done. At this time the trucks 
numbered twenty-two, but some were in bad shape. One 
lacked a radiator. On Dec. 18 the Ammunition Train 
moved to the area occupied by the Twenty-sixth Division, 
leaving 115 horses and receiving sixty-one at the new area. 
It acquired thirteen French wagons, Jan. 6, and established 
an ordnance repair shop, the unit consisting of three officers 
and forty-seven men. Motor vehicles of the train were 
repaired there. 

Line education was received at Soissons. In February 
a horse battalion went to Chemin-des-Dames, another was 
assigned to La Palice and the train and headquarters sup- 
plied the Twenty-sixth and French batteries. There the 
men received their baptism in night hauling, over a route 
repeatedly bombed by air-raiders. 

Lieutenant Edwin G. Hopkins and Dr. Conrad Wessel- 
hoef t won Croix de Guerres in the Soissons sector and others 
were awarded decorations in later operations. At Reme- 
court, March 28, the Ammunition Train was sporting sixty 
trucks. It received a scrub lot of horses from the horse 
hospital, many of them so skinny that the men had to re- 
adjust the harness to make them fit, but the auimals were 
soon flourishing. 

The first real running of shell-swept roads was on the 
Fleurry highway on what was known as "Dead Man's 
Curve" in Anceville, in the Toul sector, when the Yankee 
Division had replaced the First Division there. The men 
never flinched. In the fights at Apremont and Seicheprey 
Colonel Keville's men had to haul ammunition eighteen 
kilometers over hazardous roads. They worked day and 



KEVILLE'S AMMUNITION TRAIN 107 

night. In the Seicheprey battle all hands worked forty- 
eight hours without a letup. 

A truck was hit by a shell and it was loaded with ammu- 
nition at the time. Fortunately the forward part was 
struck, dislodging the gas tank and ripping away the driver's 
seat. Wagoner James J. Burke and Lieutenant Earle S. 
Horton were knocked off and wounded, Burke in the groin 
and Horton fatally hurt in the chest. Under heavy shell 
fire Driver Burke stopped up the shrapnel holes in the gas 
tank with a bar of toilet soap which he carried in his tool 
box, started the engine and completed the trip, and found 
aid for Horton, who died in a hospital. Another ammuni- 
tion truck was stalled in an exposed strip of road and the 
driver, finding himself on an incline, released the brakes and 
coasted to safety. 

The Ammunition Train at this time numbered thirty- 
two officers and 1,333 enlisted men. There was an epidemic 
of mange among the horses and mules at Toul which proved 
troublesome. The men of the train detailed to ammunition 
camp duty did splendid work, as did the cooks, whose 
hearty meals and midnight lunches contributed to victory. 

When the Fifty-first Artillery Brigade began to use 
roving batteries it became difficult for the drivers of am- 
munition trucks and wagons to locate the batteries in the 
dark This was accomplished by guides who, exposed to 
bombs and shell fire, never failed to give proper directions, 
no matter how great the danger and excitement. 

From the first real action the men of Colonel Keville's 
command vied with each other for the chance to go on 
hazardous trips. This spirit was characteristic of every 
Yankee Division unit. Quitters were harder to find than a 
needle m a haystack. G Company always kept its horses 
as if groomed for a horse show. 

Major G. S. King of Hyde Park was Colonel Keville's 
first adjutant. He was relieved at Bemecourt to go to the 
office of the division adjutant. Captain H. S. Gushing be- 
came a major and commanded the motor battalion. The 



108 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

violent artillery play at Chateau Thierry and the rapid 
changing of the lines made it difficult for the Ammunition 
Train men. Often positions changed hourly and it wasn't 
easy or pleasant in a battle area to hunt for concealed battery 
positions. Often the ammunition trucks and wagons were 
forced to go almost to the very front line. 

The preparation for the intensive bombardment of the 
enemy in the St. Mihiel drive kept the ammunition trains 
busy and none was more on its toes than "Billy" Keville's, 
nor delivered more briskly. In the hill north of Verdun, 
where roads became pitfalls and quarries, the Yankee 
Division Ammunition Train managed somehow to worm 
through and keep the various calibre of shells piled high 
beside the batteries and the infantry well supplied with 
small-arms ammunition. 

Major Ashly was in the postal service in Burlington, Vt., 
Major Pell worked in the postoffice at St. Albans, Vt., Major 
Burton came from Boston, Major H. S. Cushing from Med- 
ford and in peace times was bond manager at Lee, Higgin- 
son & Co., State street, Boston. Captain Howe was from 
Northfield, Vt., Captain Shanley was a member of the 
Winooski, Vt., fire department. Captain Hudson was a 
linotyper on the Burlington Free Press. Captain McMath 
of Montpelier was in the office of the adjutant-general of 
Vermont. Lieutenant Corey was a conductor and lived at 
Newport, Vt., Lieutenant Melaney of Burlington was in the 
railway mail service, Lieutenant Hartwell was a hardware 
dealer at St. Johnbury, Vt., Lieutenant Rogers dealt in real 
estate in Melrose, Lieutenant Edwin G. Hopkins, who was 
decorated, was a civil engineer in Boston, Lieutenant Miner 
was an electrician in Brattleboro, Vt., Lieutenants Gilbert 
and Daily both hailed from the Bay State, the latter from 
Hyde Park. Lieutenant Newton of Burlington was in the 
postal service. By the way, Uncle Sam's postal employes 
were plentiful on the Western front in France and made 
splendid soldiers. 



KEVILLE'S AMMUNITION TRAIN 109 

Lieutenant Lang was a railroad man from St. Johnsbury 
and Lieutenant Buckley an ammunition inspector from 
Bellows Falls. In the medical department of the Ammuni- 
tion Train were Lieutenant Kelliher, from Cambridge, Cap- 
tain Wesselhoeft from Boston. Lieutenant Turner sold in- 
surance in Brookline, Captain Gorfinkle practiced law in 
Boston, Lieutenant Gall was secretary at the Boston 
Chamber of Commerce and Lieutenant Gleason graduated 
from Norwich University. 

Colonel Keville carried his own touring car over and it 
traveled more than 30,000 miles. It had been repeatedly 
under fire and bore shrapnel scars. Sergeant Pingree was 
chauffeur for Colonel Keville until promoted to lieutenant, 
when Sergeant Fred J. Kulda of South Boston took the job. 

The Fifty-first Artillery Brigade set a fast pace, but 
"Billy" Keville's Ammunition Train kept up with it and it 
had almost at times to overturn mountains to do it. Colonel 
Keville and his crew were there. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Fighting Engineers 

B Perhaps you have read of "Gary's Chickens." 
They were famous. They made history in the 
Montdidier sector and American engineers were in 
the brood. 

It was in the Spring of 1918 when the German push was 
at its height. The enemy, with superior numbers, struck 
the British Fifth Army a staggering blow. 

Lines broke. Cary, a British officer, rallied every avail- 
able man — cooks, dishwashers, stablemen, litter-bearers and 
hospital orderlies in a last desperate stand. 

Into the breach sprang a detachment of American 
pioneers who had been working with the British units. Un- 
solicited they abandoned their tools to fight. 

With rifles and grenades they joined "Gary's Chickens," 
and with them bled and died. The gallant Cary and his 
men held their ground that day and every allied army sang 
the praises of the American engineers. Some of them were 
decorated. All were commended. 

Their superb spirit and courage in that fight immortal- 
ized American "sappers," as the technical troops were 
termed by the French. 

There never was a time when the engineers from the 
United States overlooked a chance to fight, although fight- 
ing was not supposed to be included in their repertory. The 
engineers were as eager to engage the Boche at close quarters 
as was the doughboy, and they "mixed it" far more than any 
historian will ever give them credit. 

They abandoned picks and shovels and more technical 
implements for bayonets at the slightest provocation. You 

110 



THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS 111 

couldn't keep the engineers out of the fray when things were 
popping. 

The major part of the time, however, the war toil of the 
pioneers was an unromantic, unspectacular, heart-breaking 
grind. They had to build bridges and lay pontoons and 
repair roads for the infantry to advance. Frequently they 
were ahead of the attacking waves. They had to smooth 
the way for foot troops and tanks. They had to fill in 
enormous mine craters and numerous shell holes. 

They were raked by artillery, sniped at by sharpshooters, 
bombed and machine-gunned by Gothas, and it was all in a 
day's work. The "sappers" were always in the thickest of 
it. They worked, ate, fought and slept (with a soft pedal 
on the latter) constantly in regions where death was supreme. 

And right in the front rank of engineer organizations 
when it came to pluck and achievement stood the 101st 
Regiment of Engineers from home. No unit of sappers 
served longer or with greater credit to flag and country. 

And the 101st Engineers were none other than the First 
Corps Cadets, one of the institutions of Boston. Coming 
down to brass tacks, or, as we might say, "to speak right out 
in meeting," every Bostonian recalls the days when the First 
Corps Cadets did not receive the military respect that the 
organization was entitled to. 

Its roster boasted of the names of the first families, of the 
most prominent men in the community, whose sons suc- 
ceeded them in serving in the outfit. Partly because of this 
select personnel and partly because it is a human tendency 
and weakness to misjudge and misunderstand, the First 
Corps Cadets were looked upon in certain quarters as "ball- 
room warriors," "tin soldiers" and "social snobs." 

You cannot appreciate how happy I am to be able to 
shatter these absurd titles and banish this rot and to tell 
the people of New England, and, through them, the Ameri- 
can public, how unjust and cruelly inaccurate these appella- 
tions were, how they wronged this and other historic or- 
ganizations that went over and met the test. 



112 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

You should have seen those so-called "tin soldiers" and 
"ballroom warriors" scrap. You should have seen them 
work like laborers with their hands. You should have 
beheld their indomitable spirit and courage. You should 
have seen the hell-holes where they labored day after day, 
week after week, month after month. You should have 
seen them with the grime and fag of battle, should have seen 
how they ignored danger and death in the performance of 
their duty! 

Theirs was the spirit of Concord and Lexington and 
Bunker Hill and Gettysburg and El Caney. Hereafter, 
when we hear the name of First Corps of Cadets, it will be a 
signal for profound American gratitude and homage. My, 
but how "tin soldiers" can fight and suffer! 

The world war upset tradition. It was the mirror of 
manhood. It revealed the true nature of men. In the 
trenches and dugouts and fox-holes a real democracy was 
born. 

Youngsters from colleges and mansions fought shoulder 
to shoulder with lads from shops and the slums. War was 
a great leveller. The sons of the rich and the sons of the 
lowly suffered and died. From the ranks of both sprang 
heroes. I recall a cartoon in a comic monthly which I found 
in a dugout in the Argonne one day, depicting a great lady 
visiting the tenement of a washerwoman to tell her that her 
son had written that the washerwoman's son was the 
bravest lad in the regiment. The expression of pride on the 
face of the mother of the tenement was as a benediction. 

I came across the son of William A. Gaston, president 
of the National Shawmut Bank of Boston, in the ranks 
of the Fifth Marines. He left Harvard and enlisted 
under age and became a "soldier of the sea" because 
he wanted to see action. He had been careful not to 
disclose family ties, because he wanted service and no 
favors. He was just "Private Gaston" among his com- 
rades, a big, plucky lad of nineteen, who was standing on 
his own feet and on his own merit. 



THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS 113 

This modest effort, this plain Americanism, was one of 
the finest features of the front. And another feature that 
always gripped you was the official lists of "Americans" 
cited for distinguished service, lists that resembled frag- 
ments of a Russian directory, lists of names with a half 
dozen and more syllables, names that we correspondents 
dreaded to cable, there was such danger of having them 
mussed before they found their way into print. 

Indeed, an army of democracy for democracy was Uncle 
Sam's Expeditionary Force of more than 2,500,000 men. 

The splendid record made by the 101st Engineers was 
largely due to the indefatigable efforts and military acumen 
of Colonel George W. Bunnell, who was born in Oakland, 
CaL, forty-four years ago, and who settled in Massachu- 
setts in 1912. He lives in Worcester. 

Colonel Bunnell was a regular before joining the National 
Guard. He served in the Fourth United States Artillery 
and resigned in 1901 to enter business. He was president 
of the Power Construction Company before he went to 
France. In 1906 he was lieutenant-colonel in the Engineer 
Division of the New York National Guard. 

The 101st Engineers had been quartered at Wentworth 
Institute and at the Cadet Armory when ordered abroad. 
The regiment left Boston, Sept. 24, 1917, for New York, 
where it boarded the U. S. S. Andanta and sailed to Halifax, 
where it joined the convoy. The engineers were landed at 
Liverpool and went by way of Southampton to Le Havre. 
The regiment sailed for home from Brest on the U. S. S. Mt. 
Vernon, March 28, 1919, and with the other units aboard 
received a hearty home-coming welcome April 4. 

The officers under Colonel Bunnell were Lieutenant- 
Colonel Arthur L. Bartlett, Major Frank W. Hamilton, com- 
manding the first battalion, and Major John F. Osborne, 
commanding the second battalion; Captain Herbert C. 
Thomas, adjutant; Captain George G. Tarbell, personnel 
adjutant; Captain John Ware, supply officer; Captain 
Minton M. Warren, topographical officer; Captain Harold 



114 THE FIGHTING^YANKEES OVERSEAS 

C. Hilgard, adjutant first battalion; Captain John E. 
Langley, adjutant second battalion; Captain Harry R. 
Howe, Company A; Captain Horace Z. Landon, Company 
B; Captain Harold E. Hadley, Company C; Captain Charles 
J. Bateman, Company D; Captain William R. Mattson, 
Company E; Captain Edwin M. Brush, Company F; Cap- 
tain George E. Parsons. 

First Lieutenants — Joseph W. Strong, William F. 
Chisholm, Colin S. Park, Robert B. Swain, Robert P. 
Holmes, Arthur H. Niles, Leslie C. Skeen, William B. Mac- 
Millan, Julius Daniels, Ernest W. Harvie, George H. Schlot- 
terer, Walter R. Wallin, Henry C. Drown, Henry O. Jackson, 
Charles W. Gant, Ernest J. Kluge, Karl F. Jackson, Schuyler 
R. Waller and John F. Foley. 

Second Lieutenants — William Dubler, Irven Paul, Fran- 
cis J. Kurriss, Lewis J. Edmunds, Charles H. Juster, Robert 
W. Kierstead, Lloyd E. Clayton, George A. Streicher, 
Arthur B. Stanley, Porter W. Martin, John W. Condit, 
Norville L. Millmore, Arthur H. Cashin, Frederic Hewey, 
William S. Buxton, John F. Datson, Frank S. Sawyer, 
George A. Fuller, Walter F. Livermore, Ernest B. Frey, 
William S. Cleaves, Edward F. Sheldon, William J. Thorn- 
ton, John B. Wheeler, Otis L. Farley, Alan C. Livingston 
and John Caswell, Jr. 

The medical officers were Major Edwin B. Nielson and 
Captain Harold J. Connor. Captain Vincent R. Sayward 
was dental officer and the Rev. H. Boyd Edwards, formerly 
of the Eighth Massachusetts Infantry, was chaplain. 

The high-grade personnel of the 101st Engineers was 
shown by the many men who became officers from the 
ranks. 

The work of the 101st Engineers was so brilliant in the 
St. Mihiel drive, when the American forces, in less than two 
days of fighting, wiped out an enemy salient that had been 
a thorn in the side of the allies for nearly four years, that 
General Edwards sent the following commendation to 
Colonel Bunnell: 



THE FIGHTING ENGINEERS 115 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE, 

.„ _ ,. September 20, 1919. 

-From: Commanding General. 

To : Commanding Officer, 101st Engineers. 

Subject: Commendation of your command. 

1 . From the 12th to the 14th of September this division played 
an important part in the cutting off of the St. Mihiel salient, push- 
ing through practically unknown enemy country from Les Eparges 
to Vigneulles, to a distance of approximately fourteen kilometers. 

2. In a brilliant dash of this sort, the advancing troops are 
always hailed with the acclaim which they well deserve. The 
multitude applauds them. But to those of us who know the inside 
points of the game there comes the thought of those others without 
whom the success could not have been accomplished. 

3. The duties of engineer troops seldom lead to the path of 
glory. Their labors and the fruits of them are seldom recognized 
by the layman. But there are some of us who know of the work 
that your regiment has done. In this last advance I cannot com- 
pliment you too highly on it. The 101st Engineers not only did 
the pioneer work at the front which was their specific duty but also 
repaired the roads in the rear which should, perhaps, more properly 
be done by Corps Engineers. 

u n'i T° Ur officers and men repaired roads that were filled with 
shell holes, wire and other obstacles, roads which in some cases 
were entirely obliterated. They accomplished their mission in a 
minimum of time under difficulties which seemed insurmountable. 
Iney continued their work day and night, laboring unceasingly 
under fire, making it possible to carry ammunition and supplies 
to the troops, that they might hold the ground which they had 
taken Without the supreme effort of your regiment our work 
would have gone for naught. 

5. I congratulate you on your masterly handling of a difficult 
piece of work, and through you I congratulate your regiment, 
which has continued to uphold the best traditions of New England 
and of the Yankee Division. 

C. R. EDWARDS, 

Major-General, Commanding. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Heroic Machine Gunners 

BFrom lieutenant to lieutenant-colonel is some 
jump. John D. Murphy of Natick, expert machine 
gunner, made it and nobody was surprised. We 
all predicted that Jack would be there when the 
time came, because if there was ever a man born a soldier, 
Colonel Murphy was. 

Jack was so successful on the battlefields of France that 
Uncle Sam awarded him a Distinguished Service Cross for 
gallantry and the French decorated him with a Croix de 
Guerre. 

Colonel Murphy came home division machine gun officer 
of the Yankee Division at the age of twenty-six. He re- 
turned conscious that he and the machine gunners of the 
New England division did their share. The going was 
rough at times and many brave men fell, but like the artil- 
lery and the infantry, they held up their end. 

That was the goal they had striven for during all those 
black months — to make good as American soldiers. 

The war toward the close developed into a machine gun 
duel, which kept Lieutenant-Colonel Murphy and his gun- 
ners busy nearly twenty -four hours a day. They performed 
wonderful feats, at times carrying guns by hand across "No 
Man's Land" and on long hikes to gain effective positions 
when roads were too badly destroyed to permit of other 
means of transportation. 

The grit and determination of the Yankee Division ma- 
chine gunners in making these departures were magnificent. 

They were the brand exhibited by American sires in the 
Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Jack and his men were 
always in the thick of it. 

116 



HEROIC MACHINE GUNNERS 117 

Colonel Murphy commanded the Ninth Regiment Ma- 
chine Gun Company during the tour on the Mexican border. 
They were all Brookline youngsters and he whipped them 
into such fine shape that regulars praised them. In those 
days we always called Jack "the West Pointer," because 
he looked the part, tall, erect, with square shoulders and a 
natty appearance. He graduated from Norwich Military 
Academy, which has turned out good men. 

He was a captain when the Yankee Division went to 
France and he was soon promoted to major, in which 
capacity he led a machine gun battalion in all the battles. 
Men were killed and wounded all around him, but Jack 
Murphy bore a charmed life. 

"I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm really safe at 
home," said he to me. "I was fortunate. Some of the 
corners we got into were nasty. Strange how some pull 
through. Never felt better in my life, but we were all 
worn to a frazzle when the armistice came. 

"I cannot praise the men of the machine gun units too 
highly. They were willing and brave. They took an in- 
terest in the game and they developed rapidly. My hat is 
off to them. I wish they might all be commended in person. 
Every lad of them deserves the gratitude of his country- 
men and so does every man of every other overseas unit who 
fought on the Western front. 

"The exchange was hot at times. It was hell. Nothing 
short of it. Boche machine guns were almost as numerous 
as blades of grass in those hills. Wouldn't have missed it 
for a million. 

"The result of artillery fire in the world war, the manner 
in which it destroyed roads and ripped up the landscape, 
convinced me that pack mules are more practical and more 
dependable than motor units for machine gun transport. 
Many times the men were obliged to lug machine guns be- 
tween them more than a dozen kilometers. I always pre- 
ferred the mule. He is tough and fearless and can pick his 
way around and through bad country. Motor equipment 



118 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

is too apt to be stalled and when it is, it's worse than nothing 
at all. 

"I look for the development of a light machine gun which 
can be carried and operated by a man almost as handily as a 
rifle. The work and spirit of the machine gunners of the 
Yankee Division was immense — American clear through." 

Machine gunners in all armies were selected because of 
their skill and nerve. I have seen them dead at their posts, 
with heaps of empty shells beside them, showing how gal- 
lantly they had fought. 

The American machine gunners performed some of the 
most difficult and heroic work in the closing battles. Their 
efforts, individually and collectively, make up some of the 
brightest pages of war history. 

There was the case of "Scotty," the sixteen-year-old 
hero of the 101st Infantry Machine Gun Company, son of 
Mrs. Stuart C. Scott of Brookline. "Scotty" was one of 
the youngest and bravest soldiers in the Yankee Division. 
He was so gallant that they dedicated a war poster to his 
heroic death for use in a Liberty Loan drive. 

With every man in his squad killed or wounded, 
"Scotty," the "baby of the Y-D," continued to defend a 
dangerous defile in the woods at Chateau Thierry. He had 
killed thirty-two Germans with his automatic rifle, lying 
prone out there alone, when a German tricked him by 
shouting in English: "Don't shoot, I'm an American!" 
Scotty raised his head in curiosity and a Hun sniper got 
him. His mother received his Croix de Guerre. 

The 101st Machine Gun Battalion consisted of a squad- 
ron of Connecticut Cavalry and 200 men from the First 
Vermont Infantry. The 102d Machine Gun Battalion, 
which Lieutenant-Colonel (then Major) Murphy com- 
manded, was composed of a squadron of Massachusetts 
cavalry less Troop B and plus three officers and 200 men of 
the First Vermont Infantry. The 103d Machine Gun Bat- 
talion was made up of a squadron of Rhode Island cavalry 
plus Troop B of the Massachusetts Cavalry Squadron, a 



HEROIC MACHINE GUNNERS 119 

machine gun troop from the New Hampshire Cavalry and 
three officers and 225 enlisted men from the First Vermont 
Infantry. 

The Brookline Machine Gun Company remained with 
the 101st Infantry, each regiment retaining its own machine 
gun unit. A tabulation made by the Yankee Division on 
Jan. 8, two months after the armistice, showed that 53.3 per 
cent of the original officers remained with the 101st Machine 
Gun Battalion and 63.3 per cent of the enlisted personnel; 
102d Machine Gun Battalion, 56 per cent of the officers and 
53 per cent of the men; 103d Machine Gun Battalion, 48 per 
cent of the officers and 79 per cent of the men, due to cas- 
ualties and transfers, but chiefly to the former. 

The Yankee Division machine gun units trained in the 
Neufchateau area and got their baptism in the Toul sector. 
After that in all the major engagements at Chateau Thierry, 
the St. Mihiel drive and in the Verdun sector the chronology 
of the machine gunners' operations is similar to that of the 
infantry. Both of these branches suffered the heaviest 
losses, with the doughboys leading the list in all divisions. 

Everybody regretted the death of Lieutenant "Dick" 
Lincoln, supply officer of the 102d Machine Gun Battalion 
and formerly of Troop A of the Bay State cavalry. He was 
killed by an air bomb. Captain G. T. Comerford of 
Brookline was wounded and Major Morgan J. Buckley, 
promoted over there from captain, was gassed. Captain 
Arthur A. Ashford of Portland, Me., also won a major's 
commission for meritorious service. Major J. L. Howard 
and Captain Rauden Meyers and others performed dis- 
tinguished service. 

There was gloom throughout the division when word 
came that members of the 103d Machine Gun Battalion 
were killed and injured in a railroad wreck on what was 
really the first lap of their journey homeward. In battle 
wholesale deaths did not seem to impress you, one became 
so calloused, but deaths after hostilities ceased, from acci- 
dent or illness, seemed more tragic. All but two of those in 



120 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

the railroad accident were members of D Company, the 
two exceptions being members of headquarters company. 
D Company was composed chiefly of Vermont and Con- 
necticut men. 

The accident happened near Montieramoy. Six were 
instantly killed — Corporal Angelo C. Cavellero and 
Privates Fred C. Foster, Louis A. Blair, Fred H. Guthrie, 
Monny H. Kannon and Isaac Gillian. Machinist Riley 
V. Strong and Corporal Gordon G. Warren died at a 
hospital. Fifteen others were injured — Sergeant Harry 
Chidsey, Sergeant McReland C. Perkins, Corporal Arthur 
E. Carey, Privates Joseph Anderson, Jesse O. Bell, Leon 
G. Gennett, Lender Howell, James W. Hudson, Patrick 
L. Kinder, James Lynch, Lee R. Manns, Ambrose N. Mc- 
Manus, Elsey B. Stutes, William H. Ritchie, Wagoner 
James H. Malone, the latter connected with headquarters 
company. 

General Edwards paid this tribute to the 102d Machine 
Gun Battalion: 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 
FRANCE, 

Sept. 30, 1918. 

From: Division Commander. 

To: Commanding Officer, 102d Machine Gun Battalion (Through 

Commanding General, Fifty-first Infantry Brigade) . 

Subject: Commendation of your command. 

1. On Sept. 12, 13 and 14 this division played an important 
part in the reduction of the St. Mihiel salient and the return of 
fifty square miles of territory to its own people. 

2. Your march from Les Eparges to Vigneulles was a remark- 
able achievement. Supporting an infantry regiment, you advanced 
with a part of your battalion fourteen or more kilometers in the 
darkness of the night, through an unknown territory infested by 
the enemy, ever pushing on through obstacles and under shell fire, 
until your ultimate goal was reached. The part that you played 
with the officers and men of your command will not be forgotten. 



HEROIC MACHINE GUNNERS 121 

3. I congratulate you, and through you your subordinate 
officers and enlisted men, for your unfaltering perseverance and 
your gallantry and courage. The people of New England have 
every right to be proud of you, as I am proud of you, for proving 
your worthiness as soldiers of the Yankee Division. 

C. R. EDWARDS, 

Major-General, Commanding. 

Major Stillman F. Westbrook commanded the 101st 
Machine Gun Battalion, Captain Hiram W. Mills com- 
manded B Company and Captain Rawdon W. Myers, C 
Company. First Lieutenant Chester F. Comey was adju- 
tant. The other officers were: First Lieutenant Charles A. 
Pellett, supply officer; First Lieutenants Harold Amory and 
PhilipS. Wain wright, B Company; First Lieutenants John H. 
Agnew and Carl J. Sandberg. C Company; Second Lieuten- 
ants Charles G. Shepard, Andrew S. Gray, Henry L. Fon- 
taine, John E. Cassidy, Kenneth R. Nisbet, Wendell* H. 
Teegarden, Morton W. Scoville, Roy D. Heyman, Luther J. 
Parker, James A. Durston, George J. Berlin, Lawrence H. 
Hansel, Herbert C. Noyes, Clinton L. Allen, Henry A. 
Brown and Robert K. Skinner. Captain Luman G. Moore 
was medical officer, Captain William J. Clegg, dental 
officer, and First Lieutenant Earl Taggart, chaplain. 

Major William P. Carpenter commanded the 102d Ma- 
chine Gun Battalion. Captain John A. Humbird commanded 
C Company and Captain Karl M. Brouse, D Company, 
First Lieutenant Gerald Courtney was adjutant and First 
Lieutenant Raymond N. Atherton, supply officer. Captain 
Leonard H. Ford was medical officer and First Lieutenant 
Arthur J. Le Veer, chaplain. The other officers were First 
Lieutenants Francis O. P. Carlson, Barry Keenan, George 
W. Bunn, William C. Bickle, Gustaf A. Nelson, John C. 
Carroll and Edward Carlson; Second Lieutenants Cola A. 
Gray, Edward C. Jackson, Joseph R. Vatcher, John H. 
Neary, Jesse S. Taylor, Walter B. Vogel, Edward H. 
Wyatt, Harold F. Still, Walter M. Tenney, Walter A. Ken- 
yon and Harold M. Fisher. 



122 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Major Herbert L. Bowen commanded the 103d Machine 
Gun Battalion and Major Will N. Thompson, from the 
Fifty-second Infantry Brigade, was attached. Captain 
Jack B. Wood commanded B Company, Captain Joseph A. 
Evarts, D Company, Captain Earle W. Chandler was acting 
adjutant and First Lieutenant Harold C. Thomas was 
supply officer. Captain Bertram H. Buxton was medical 
officer, Captain Abraham B. Rosoff, dental officer, and First 
Lieutenant Robert Campbell was chaplain. 

The other officers were First Lieutenants Rex B. Mc- 
Pherson, Roland T. Fenton, Charles H. Saltmarsh, Edward 
G. Fletcher, George M. Wallace, Howard C. Arnold, Erwin 
H. Newton, Harry H. Van Hala, Lawrence G. Miller and 
James H. Wood; Second Lieutenants Robert D. Walbridge, 
Fessenden D. Manson, Joseph H. Kehl, William W. Macom- 
ber, Merle E. Geary, Charles E. Ames, Henry C. Lewis, 
Paul D. Mattice, George L. McManus, Sheridan P. Dow 
and Frank J. Stewart. 

The 101st Trench Mortar Battery, made up chiefly of 
the old First Maine Heavy Artillery, did tip-top work. It 
was commanded by Captain James A. Walsh of No. 12 
Mayfair Street, Roxbury. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Edwards Eulogizes Litter-bearers 

BThe Sanitary Train kept pace with all other 
branches of the Yankee Division. The organiza- 
tion of the Ambulance Section and the zeal and 
courage of the litter-bearers equalled those of any 
American combat division. 

There were no more willing or intrepid medical units in 
the American Expeditionary Forces than those from New 
England. They rescued and administered to the wounded 
under the most perilous conditions. Many litter-bearers 
were wounded and killed. Their performances and sacrifices 
were among the most sublime in the Yankee Division. 

Captain Herbert W. Taylor, M. C, commanded the 
Ambulance Section, and his assistant, who deserves equal 
praise, was Captain Joseph R. Helf, M. C, of Keene, N. H. 
I don't think there were two more conscientious soldiers in 
the A, E. F. 

The Ambulance Section received warm praise from Gen- 
eral Edwards in the following citation: 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE, 

Sept. 30, 1918. 
From: Division Commander. 

To : Captain Herbert W. Taylor, M. C, Commanding Ambulance 
Section, 101st Sanitary Train. 

Subject: Commendation of 101st and 102d Ambulance Com- 
panies. 

1. I have been informed by the Division Surgeon of the ex- 
ceptionally meritorious service rendered by the Dressing Station 

123 



124 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

and Litter-Bearer Detachments of the 101st Ambulance Company 
and the Ambulance and Litter-Bearer Detachments of the 102d 
Ambulance Company on Sept. 25th, 26th and 27th, during the 
attack on the towns of Marcheville and Riaville. 

2. From an observation post I had personally observed the 
gallant work of the ambulance drivers and litter-bearers under 
terrific enemy shell fire, machine gun fire and rifle fire. From pre- 
vious experience I know that the wounded of my division would be 
well cared for under all conditions. My confidence in my sanitary 
personnel during all our engagements has left my mind free for 
other matters. 

3. But from my point of vantage my view was only superficial. 
It was not until later that I learned that you had established your 
dressing station in a daringly advanced position under direct shell 
fire and that your officers and men continued their operations 
until the station caved in after many direct hits. Your ambulances 
and litter-bearers worked unceasingly under this terrible fire for 
over twenty-four hours, continuously searching for and carrying 
the wounded. Colonel Porter states that your service was the 
most remarkable that he has ever known in the United States 
Army. 

4. I congratulate you personally on your splendid manage- 
ment of the situation, and through you I congratulate your officers 
and men on their intrepid and gallant conduct. You have all done 
much to further the glorious record of the Yankee Division, of 
which we are all so proud. 

C. R. EDWARDS, 
Major-General, Commanding. 



Lieutenant-Colonel Fred E. Jones commanded the 101st 
Sanitary Train. He was always on the job at the front and 
had enough nerve for a half dozen men. The other Sanitary 
Train officers were: Major Frederick L. Bogan, director of 
the Division Field Hospital; Major Herbert W. Taylor, 
commanding the Ambulance Section; Major Frederick L. 
Blair, Major Maurice P. Jones and Major Elmer R. Edson, 
all of Field Hospital 101; Major Leonard W. Hassett, 
commanding Field Hospital 103; Majors Frank W. Stev- 
ens and Benjamin F. Hawk of Field Hospital 104; Major 
Charles S. Walker, Medical Supply Unit; Captain Bernard 
H. Lovely, personnel adjutant; Captains Joseph H. Dunn, 



EDWARDS EULOGIZES LITTER-BEARERS 125 

Joseph B. Edwards, John P. Bethel, Orlyn Wiseman, Clyde 
C. Johnston, Robert B. Durham, Joseph H. Cutchin, 
Charles H. Sprague, Marshall A. Wellbourn, Forrest J. 
Drury, Joseph K. Surls, Thomas D. MacRossie, Frederick L. 
Gregory, Robert H. Breslin and Thomas V, Daley of the 
ambulance sections; Captains James H. Malonson, How- 
ard L. Cecil, Arthur A. Weed, Harold F. Parker, Roy E. 
Fallas, Chester P. Brown, John S. Buchanan and Thomas 
L. A. Shaffer of the field hospitals; Captain Walter D. 
Kells, dental laboratory; Captain Frank Willis, medical 
supply unit; Captain Gustave P. Grabfield, sanitary officer; 
Captain James F. Cobey and First Lieutenants Harry L. 
Upshaw, Henry L. Christiansen, Hunter S. Woodberry, 
Paul B. Roen, Swinton L. Lane, John E. Harris and John C. 
Prather. 

The 101st Field Signal Battalion also did yeoman service. 
The men of this command had a difficult and hazardous 
duty. It was their function to keep communications and 
telephones in working order. Disrupted communication 
might mean the loss of a battle and many lives. So when the 
shells were dropping thickest the signal men had to be on the 
job, in broad daylight as well as night, because whenever a 
wire was cut it had to be repaired at once, no matter how 
dangerous or exposed the point where the fixing had to be 
done. 

The heroism of the signal men equalled that of any branch 
of the service, as did their efficiency. Many of them were 
cited and decorated and quite a few were killed and wounded. 
I heard of the case of a youngster of eighteen in another 
division whose leg was nearly severed at the knee, but who 
lifted himself into a tree to repair a wire and he swooned as 
he was finishing the job. 

Such pluck was not uncommon in the Yankee Division. 
As early as the Apremont and Seicheprey fights the signal 
men showed the stuff that was in them, and in the major 
battles of the war they often accomplished what seemed 
impossible in the face of rifle and machine gun and shell fire. 



126 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Major Harry G. Chase, who developed the Massachusetts 
Field Signal Battalion into one of the best in the Na- 
tional Guard, was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and 
awarded a Distinguished Service Medal. His signal 
battalion was always considered a model. He was 
placed in command of all army signal schools in 
France and remained abroad longer than the division. 

The success of the 101st Field Signal Battalion was due, in 
a large measure, to the zeal and leadership of Major Addison 

F. Crafts, who commanded the battalion. His officers were: 
Captain Volney B. Bowles, A Company; Captain William C. 

G. Simkins, B Company, and Captain Russell Hobbs, C 
Company; First Lieutenants Archie B. McPherson, Harold 
S. Pratt, John J. Wray and Alphonsus C. Fox; Second 
Lieutenants Benjamin F. Parker, Claude C. Dudley, Herbert 
E. Burns, Ralph W. French, William L. Friend, C. F. Hunt- 
ington, Arthur S. Greenwood, Theodore B. Smith, Joseph 
W. Vermilye, Malcolm N. Webster, Edmund J. Winslow 
and Ernest G. Wunderlich; Captain Daniel S. Harrop, 
Captain Eugene J. McCarthy, medical officers; Captain 
Merwin K. Fox, dental officer; First Lieutenant Malcolm 
E. Peabody, chaplain. 

The Yankee Division motor cycle dispatch riders who 
took all sorts of perilous trips without flinching were: 
Sergeant Edward J. Nelson, Corporal Elmus M. Kaldoch, 
Privates Bertram G. Johnson, Alexander Tadesco, Charles 
G. Mature, Harry L. Dewar, Herbert R. Boomhower, 
Harry E. Avery, Ernest M. Bryanton, Raymond A. Nystrom, 
Harry B. Kent, Fred L. Kent, Francis X. Desmond, Edwin 
Hobbs, Harold F. Kropp, John F. Hanley, Jeremiah Tryon, 
Elmer Boutin and George A. Stanton. 

The personnel of the Yankee Division message centre was 
Battalion Major Arthur L. Gavin, Sergeant James F. Day- 
lor, First Class Private Thomas G. Kelley, First Class 
Private Fred Harrahy and Privates Ralph Carr, Frank 
P. Fornason, Martin Maher, James Smith and Joseph 
Stafford. 



EDWARDS EULOGIZES LITTER-BE A RERS 127 

Lieutenant A. C. Erwin of Detroit, Mich., was in charge 
of the telegraph office. The knights of the key were Harry 
Goldberg, No. 105 Southern Avenue, Dorchester, and Mich- 
ael King of Cambridge, both formerly employed at the West- 
ern Union main office on Congress Street, Boston. Sergeant 
Charles Borse of Brookline was a division photographer. 

In the French telegraph office in Eccomoy I found Hugh 
Brinkley at work, jabbering French as fluently as English. 
He is the son of Mrs. Lawrence de Cane of No. 541 West 
Park Street, Dorchester, and brother of Sue Brinkley, the 
well known singer and winner of first prize in a beauty con- 
test. The first thing Hugh did was to show me the latest 
photo of his mother. He was with the Signal Battalion on 
the border and came through the European fuss without a 
scar. 

There was not a harder worker overseas than Colonel 
Warren E. Sweetser, commander of the 101st Train Head- 
quarters and formerly commander of the old Sixth Massa- 
chusetts Infantry. Lieutenant-Colonel William H. Dolan of 
Fitchburg helped Colonel Sweetser organize and develop 
the military police unit of the Yankee Division. Colonel 
Dolan was one of the most efficient soldiers in the division. 

Colonel Sweetser's adjutant was Captain Charles E. Ake- 
ley; Captain George H. Kirkpatrick, medical officer; Cap- 
tain Arthur W. Ewing, dental officer; First Lieutenant 
Robert F. White, supply officer; Captain John E. Wilson 
attached. 

Captain Michael J. Dee made an able commander of the 
division military police company, assisted by Second Lieu- 
tenant Freeman F. Dodge. First Lieutenant George H. 
Ware commanded Labor Detachment No. 1; First Lieuten- 
ant Roger W. Bennett commanded Labor Detachment 
No. 2 and First Lieutenant Isaac Alexander was medical 
officer. 

First Lieutenant Lawrence D. Jenkins acted as assistant 
zone major, and First Lieutenants Thomas J. Marley and 
Ralph Cohn and Second Lieutenants Merle E. Geary and 



128 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

George W. Emsley served as town majors for the Yankee 
Division. 

On Feb. 19 the Yankee Division was given its final 
review by General Pershing at Eccomoy and the commander- 
in-chief praised the troops for their splendid appearance and 
discipline. Some of the units had to be carried twenty 
miles in trucks. The truck drivers worked forty-eight hours 
to get all the troops at the review point on time. 

Major-General Harry C. Hale, who commanded the divi- 
sion when it came home, was so pleased with the feat of the 
motor section that he sent this letter to Colonel Sweetser: 



"HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
"FRANCE, 

February, 1919. 

"Colonel Warren E. Sweetser, commanding Train Headquarters 

and Military Police, Eccomoy, France: 
"The successful review of this division on Feb. 19 by the com- 
mander-in-chief was made possible only by the extremely efficient 
co-operation of the personnel of the divisional trains in conveying 
a large part of the division to and from the review ground. 

"I am aware of the serious obstacles that beset the truck drivers 
in carrying out their work in this connection, and have learned 
with gratification of their loyal, untiring and effective efforts in 
surmounting these obstacles. It is at times like these, when such 
unusual, unselfish and arduous work is demanded to insure suc- 
cess, that the mettle of the soldier is tried, and in this case the 
prompt and loyal response to the demand shows that the test was 
met in every instance. 

"I take this occasion, also, to congratulate you and the officers 
and men belonging to the trains of this division upon their expert 
skill in so long maintaining the trains in a serviceable condition, 
and upon their labor and care in keeping them in a clean condition. 
And their discipline and efficiency in those respects are equaled by 
their careful observance of road regulations. 

"I congratulate and thank you all. 

"HARRY C. HALE, 

"Major-General, United States Army, Commanding." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

A Surgeon's War Impressions 

BI Obtained a medical slant on modern war from 
Major Frederick L. Bogan of Dorchester, who was 
appointed director of the Field Hospital of the 
Yankee Division the day I met him in Eccomoy. 
It was a well-earned promotion. Fred was congratulated 
all along the line. He and every member of the medical 
staff gave their best over there, often toiling until they almost 
dropped from exhaustion. 

I will cite an instance to illustrate how the "medicos," 
as the doughboys called them, had to work when the maimed 
and the dying were rushed back in staggering numbers from 
the front line. I was standing outside an evacuation hospital 
of another division one day during the early fighting in the 
Marne, before the Yankee Division got into the scrapping 
in that sector. 

Two army surgeons, aprons stained by fresh blood, came 
out of the operating room for a breath of fresh air and 
cigarettes. One was young and the other an older man of 
reputation as a surgeon in private practice. They had 
scarcely stepped into the early morning sunlight when an 
orderly announced that a critical operation was necessary 
at once in the case of a marine. 

"Hell," said the younger surgeon. "I was in hopes that 
case would wait a few hours longer. I didn't think the 
patient was equal to it, just yet." 

"The commanding surgeon says the patient is fit now," 
replied the orderly, saluting and turning on his heel. 

"I've been on fifteen hours and don't feel in the mood," 
said the older surgeon. 

129 



130 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"And I've been at it ten hours. It's a ticklish job and 
one that demands a more practiced hand than mine," said 
the younger. 

"Tackle it, lad, you're fresher than I am." 

"But you could do the job so much better." 

"I'll tell you how we'll settle it. Let's toss up," said 
the older surgeon, who lost. He went in and his skill saved 
the soldier's life, and I wondered if the coin had turned dif- 
ferently and the younger had performed the operation, 
whether he would have been so successful. It seemed to me 
that in a measure at least the fate of the corporal depended 
on the flip of that franc. 

This incident was a rarity. Had they been inside they 
would not have debated the matter an instant. I have seen 
operating rooms in the chateau of titled persons who turned 
over their estates to army hospital units and in halls and 
library lay American doughboys desperately wounded 
awaiting the knife that would send them back to their 
relatives or to eternity. 

I have seen doughboys with blanched faces studying the 
designs of valuable tapestries that hung in the foyers of 
ancient chateau, smoking cigarettes while two of their com- 
rades were in the busy room, waiting for orderlies to bear 
them on a stretcher into the apartment heavy with the odor 
of anesthetics. 

I have chatted with them as they lay on their cots on 
the lawn, after they had pulled through with a new lease of 
life, and I have seen forms carried shrouded to a remote tent 
known as the "morgue," where company carpenters made 
crude army coffins for them. I have seen them buried in 
olive drab army blankets when the material for coffins gave 
out and when casualties increased with the magnitude of 
operations. 

I have seen surgeons and first aid men at work in mine 
craters and in the ruins of houses and under the battered 
arches of bridges and in wrecked churches with shells crack- 
ing all about. The American people owe a debt of grati- 



A SURGEON'S WAR IMPRESSIONS 131 

tude to the professional men for their war services — to the 
army doctors and surgeons and to the army chaplains. 
Each class is entitled to a book dealing with their respective 
contributions and accomplishments. 

Major Bogan's father was colonel of the old Ninth In- 
fantry of the Massachusetts National Guard in Cuba. He 
died during that campaign and Colonel Logan's father suc- 
ceeded him as regimental commander. Major Bogan 
commanded the 102d Field Hospital before assuming com- 
mand of the Division Field Hospital. Speaking of impres- 
sions he said: 

"It almost got you to see the fellows you knew, all 
crumpled up. It was worse after you had picked them for 
their physical soundness to see them wounded. I had 
passed them, and a finer built crew couldn't be found in the 
country — young, and lithe, and strong. 

"Our hospital was handling all kinds of cases, gas and 
everything. 

"It was tough to see kids who lived around the corner 
from you sucking for breath and when you bled them to see 
the blood ooze black and thick as chocolate because of gas 
poison. 

"But weren't they game! I didn't think it was in the 
ordinary man to show such fortitude. That was one of the 
surprises of the war. I saw doughboys smile with mud and 
blood in their hair. I saw them smile mortally wounded. 
I saw them die with a smile on their lips, and that isn't an 
exaggeration. 

"Their patience and courage was magnificent. It gripped 
your heart. It made you give the best that was in you. 

"The war put a dent in your private life. We will all 
have to go back and build our practice anew. It kept us 
away from our homes and families. But every man is the 
richer for the experience. I wouldn't have missed it for 
anything. It has made every participant, from commander- 
in-chief to buck private, broader and more sympathetic. 
It was an education. 



132 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"And the war brought out new traits in men, or de- 
veloped them. There was Mike Sweeney of Ward 8, one of my 
handy men who carried litters until corns grew on his hands, 
a dare-devil rough and ready, with about as much sentiment 
in him as a clam. At least that's what we thought, but he 
fooled us. 

"Mike came to me one day with a long face and said he 
didn't think it was right to have the dead lying in an old 
French barn which we were using in a ruined village. I 
asked him why. He said the place didn't look clean enough 
for fellows he had known. I asked him if he would like to 
be manager of the morgue and he jumped at the chance. 

"The way he worked in that barn was a caution. First 
he shovelled and then he swept and spread lime and tidied 
things up generally, and he insisted that every soldier's 
body be handled as tenderly as a woman handles an infant. 
Mike made good in that job as he did in everything, only he 
seemed to take a greater interest in this than anything he 
ever did. War brought out a new side of his nature as it 
did with most men. 

"When we were in the Toul sector I had a hospital that 
the men called 'Bogan's Hotel,' because we gave them eggs 
and pie there. We used several thousand eggs a week, and 
if the pies gave out there was a howl of disappointment. It 
has been an awful grind, but it was worth while." 

I wanted a haircut and found the barber and tailor of the 
headquarters troop toiling side by side in a room little larger 
than a closet in the barn attached to a private residence. 
They were cousins. The barber was Harry Kohlligan, who 
had a shop at No. 943^ Washington Avenue, Chelsea, and 
the tailor, Joseph Madancy, who used to sit Turk fashion on 
a bench at No. Ill Summer Street. Both lived at No. 274 
Spruce Street, Chelsea. 

If General Edwards heard the fine things these two 
privates said about him he would be flattered. I'll wager 
the general's ears burned in Boston that day. Said Kohlli- 
gan as he kept the shears snipping merrily near my ears: 



A SURGEON'S WAR IMPRESSIONS 133 

"All the men loved General Edwards. We were lone- 
some when he went away He called you 'My son' when 
he met you and he went right into the front line. He was a 
fine soldier and a fine man, was General Edwards. The men 
would go to hell for him." 

Said Tailor Madancy: 

"We didn't have time for this work when the fighting 
was on. We were both mounted couriers then. We 
learned to ride in the old country. I served in the army 
there. I have had some sad thoughts as I worked at tailor- 
ing after fights. I have had to patch holes made by bullets 
and shrapnel and have had to shorten sleeves. It makes 
you think, this game of war tailoring." 

Corporal Cyril B. Dumas of West Barrington breezed in 
and greeted us cheerily. He also eulogized General Ed- 
wards, adding: 

"I was a jockey seven years. That's why I left the 101st 
Engineers to join headquarters troop. You wouldn't think 
I was married and the father of three kids, would you? 
Well, that's me. But it couldn't keep me away from the 
war. Sure, I rattle off French like a native. Why shouldn't 
I? My mother was born in Verdun, where we were billeted 
for a spell, and my father was born in Lyons. 

"I liked mounted courier work. It was exciting at times 
and dangerous. Dick Currie of Watertown and Corporal 
Meuse of Wakefield had horses killed, but they escaped. 
Part of a tree hit my mount one night. The horses shied 
easily. What scared them most was our own batteries. 
When the guns suddenly flashed near you and you didn't 
think there was a battery within a mile it made the horses 
bolt. Shells dropped close at times, but orders were to get 
through some way and we did our best." 



CHAPTER XX. 

Yanks All Athletes 

B Colonel John H. Allen, division surgeon, told me 
he never saw finer physical specimens than were the 
rank and file of the men of the Yankee Division. 
He said they were broad-shouldered, thick-chested 
and clean-limbed, "regular athletes." 

A medical census taken early in February, while the 
division was in the Eccomoy area, showed the percentage of 
sickness to be one and four-tenths per cent, which was con- 
sidered unusually low. The cases were all minor, such as 
colds, tonsilitis and grippe, with a few cases of pneumonia. 
No division in the army got any finer medical care and the 
men showed it. 

After we arrived home you heard people remark every- 
where how rugged the men appeared, and those who re- 
turned unwounded are better than they ever were in their 
lives, now that the strain and hardships are over. And the 
answer was — life in the open. 

That was the medicine that proved the chief mainstay. 
Hundreds of soldiers found it difficult and uncomfortable 
to sleep indoors at first. They tossed about and seemed 
stifled. It took them quite a while to become accustomed 
to civilized sleeping comforts. 

People at home saw them iive months after the fighting 
ceased. They should have seen some of the men and 
officers during the closing weeks of fighting in the hills north 
of Verdun. They would have found them with drawn 
faces and hollow-eyed and on the verge of mental and physi- 
cal collapse, especially many of the officers. The long rest 

134 



YANKS ALL ATHLETES 135 

period that followed the armistice, the first real lay-off that 
the Yankee Division received in France, made everybody 
about as "fit as a fiddle." The duties and responsibilities 
of the medical staff were heavy. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas L. Jenkins was sanitary 
inspector of the Yankee Division, Major William B. Morgan 
was assistant sanitary inspector, Major Carl R. Bailey, Ma- 
jor Charles W. Comfort and Captain Robert 0. Blood were 
assistant division surgeons, Captain Paul O. Collins of 
Detroit, Mich., was water supply officer. He had the very 
vital duty of going ahead of the division and testing the 
water supply in every region where a division unit was to be 
billeted. 

He said he found water unfit to drink in many places, but 
never came across a well that had been deliberately poisoned 
by the enemy. The health of the men depended directly 
on the character of the water supply, so that, in a large 
measure, Captain Collins, only recently out of college, had 
the welfare and lives of some 27,000 to worry about. He 
was a hustler, and he loved his work. 

Captain Joseph R. Helff was assistant divisional surgeon. 
Captain Harry A. Stedkel was division psychiatrist and 
Lieutenant Isaac Alexander, neurologist. 

There were so many Hales at division headquarters that 
the men used a parody on that familiar song which ran : 

"Hale! Hale! the gang's all here, 

Where in h — 1 is Edwards?" 

Major-General Harry C. Hale, commanding the division, 
was joined by Colonel Richard K. Hale, the popular artillery 
expert, as chief of staff, after Colonel Duncan J. Major, the 
so-called "storm center of the division," retired, and Captain 
Willis H. Hale was aide-de-camp. The other aides were 
Captain Charles D. Hodges and Lawrence B. Cummings. 

Colonel William H. Dolan of Fitchburg was divisional 
ordnance officer and his assistant was Captain Charles W. 
Bowen; Lieutenant-Colonel John D. Murphy of Natick, 



136 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

divisional machine gun officer; Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred F. 
Foote, divisional inspector, and First Lieutenant John P. 
King and Second Lieutenant John P. Lane, assistant in- 
spectors. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Elon F. Tandy of Fitchburg was 
divisional quartermaster and there was not a better one in 
the American Expeditionary Forces. His assistants were 
Captain Oscar G. Lagerquist, Captain Martin A. Kenealy, 
Captain Frank P. Edwards, Captain Robert B. Dickson, 
First Lieutenant Roy E. Decker, First Lieutenant August 
S. Atwood and Second Lieutenants Richard J. Leonard and 
Charles I. Boynton. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles A. Stevens was divisional 
adjutant, and his assistants were Captain-Major George M. 
King and Lieutenant James W. Boyer. Colonel Stevens 
had a perfect record system. I don't think there was a 
better one in the American Expeditionary Forces. They 
could produce a record or order or a citation in a jiffy, and 
the working force came in for its share of praise. The adju- 
tant's office was a beehive just before the division sailed for 
home with the mass of army paper work to attend to, and 
great as was the task, it was done with dispatch, and, what 
was more important, it was done accurately. 

Lieutenant Boyer had a remarkable memory. He could 
give you offhand a man's middle initial or a date when a 
certain order or citation was issued and he was always right. 
He was a wizard in this respect and a "find" for Colonel 
Stevens. Boyer is a Chelsea boy and a member of the 
regular army. He was formerly in the Massachusetts Coast 
Artillery. 

General Hale was so pleased with the work of the statisti- 
cal department of the Yankee Division that he sent this 
commendation to Colonel Stevens: 



YANKS ALL ATHLETES 137 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE, 

March 17, 1919. 
Lieutenant-Colonel C. A. Stevens, 

Adjutant, Twenty-sixth Division. 
My dear Colonel Stevens : 

During the period of four months that I have been with this 
division I have noted with satisfaction the growing efficiency of the 
personnel of your office. Their work is not such as to bring them 
into public notice, but they deserve recognition for faithful and 
effective service, nevertheless. 

I wish, therefore, to express to you, and, through you, to the 
officers and men of your department, my appreciation of the loyal, 
conscientious and successful work that you have all done in fulfill- 
ing your part in this war, and I desire to add to that appreciation 
my thanks as your division commander. 

Very sincerely yours, 

HARRY O. HALE, 
Major-General, Commanding. 

Captain Charles B. Campbell of South Orange, N. J., 
was division personnel adjutant, and his records were also 
in apple-pie order. Captain Emerson G. Taylor did 
splendid work compiling statistics as historical officer. 
First Lieutenant James E. Kreigh and Second Lieutenant 
Russell K. Barnes assisted the personnel adjutant. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Albert E. Greenlaw was assistant C. 
of S. G.-l, assisted by Captain Malcolm Stoddard, Captain 
Howard J. Sachs, First Lieutenant Harry Van Hala and 
Second Lieutenant Harry L. Jones. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton R. Hersey was assistant 
C. of S. G.-2, assisted by Captain Richard C. Peters, First 
Lieutenant Harold E. Washburn, interpreter, and First 
Lieutenant Benjamin Pitman. 

Major Emerson G. Taylor and Major Paul Loughridge 
were assistants to G-3, as was Captain Oliver Wolcott, son 
of the late Governor Wolcott, 



138 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Captain Keith P. Ribble was division gas officer. He 
was assisted by First Lieutenant H. W. Brown. Captain 
William J. Henderson, as transport officer, had his hands 
full. Captain Gustave P. Grabfield was delousing officer, 
Captain Walter D. Kells was acting dental surgeon when 
the division came home and Captain Paul L. White remained 
at school in France. 

First Lieutenant Thomas J. Byrne and Second Lieuten- 
ant Winthrop P. Mandell were tip-top officers in Head- 
quarters Troop. Lieutenant Mandell is a member of the 
Boston Transcript family. He developed into an A-l 
soldier. 

Captain Edwin S. Cooper as division photographer was 
cited for his pluck in snapping battle scenes. First Lieuten- 
ant Carl H. Hood was athletic officer. The 104th Infantry 
won the last big divisional athletic tournament held in 
France. 

First Lieutenant Alexander Macdonald had his problems 
as division mail officer. 

Captain James F. Coburn had the distinction of acting 
as division judge-advocate, just before the homeward journey, 
as Colonel Harry B. Anderson, judge-advocate, was ordered 
to remain in France. 

The several welfare organizations did good work with 
the Yankee Division, the Y. M. C. A., the Jewish Welfare 
Board, the Knights of Columbus, the Salvation Army, and 
the Red Cross. The Knights of Columbus' rendezvous in 
Eccomoy was always thronged. It was amusing to see the 
doughboys puffing their corn-cobs, which they nicknamed 
"Missouri meerschaums." 

Everybody praised the activities of the various welfare 
secretaries and particularly the diligence and generosity of 
Captain Rufus H. Thomas, a Boston clubman, who repre- 
sented the Red Cross. I never heard anything but praise 
for the Red Cross overseas, and listen to what Colonel John 
H. Allen, division surgeon of the Yankee Division, said 
about it : 



YANKS ALL ATHLETES 139 

"We don't know what we would have done without 
Captain Thomas and the Red Cross. They certainly de- 
livered the goods. They were always doing something fine 
for us. The Red Cross put about $5,000 in cash in our 
field hospitals." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Seicheprey a Reverse 

BThe Yankee Division did not take part in a major 
operation until it relieved the Second Division at 
the Marne in July. In the Chemin-des-Dames, 
where it received its baptism, it conducted and 
repulsed minor raids. 

In the Toul sector, the fights in the Apremont Woods and 
at Seicheprey in April, 1918, were the largest actions in 
which any American units had been engaged up to that time, 
but compared with later battles, these two early engagements 
on a front not far from the birthplace of Joan of Arc should 
be classified as serious raids and nothing more. 

When the investigation is conducted in Washington, 
regular army witnesses are almost certain to testify that 
Seicheprey was an American reverse and it must, in historical 
accuracy and fairness, be so recorded, so far as the first 
thrust was concerned. But when the German "flying circus" 
struck a second time that day, they received a hot reception. 
It was no reverse then. Raids, on every front, are give-and- 
take propositions. 

Seicheprey, a ruined village, lay in an exposed position. 
Fifteen hundred German shock troops attacked in daylight, 
captured or killed our outposts and machine gun pointers, 
remained in the village to clean up and carried off a number 
of prisoners, including the doctor and his crew commanding 
the battalion hospital. 

The battalion of the 102d Infantry, chiefly Connecticut 
men, which had been guarding the village, stiffened its front 
and was reinforced to meet the second attack that afternoon. 
The first attack had the effect of a stinging blow between the 

140 



SEICHEPREY A REVERSE 141 

eyes, but the men from the Nutmeg State recovered and 
pitched into the Heinies with the fury of tigers. 

They fought the seasoned enemy troops with rifle, pistol, 
bayonet and grenade. They fought them hand-to-hand in 
the streets and in ruined houses, cellars and dugouts. They 
fought with their fists and they drove the enemy back. On 
that day the Huns got their first real taste of the strength, 
ability and courage of Yankee troops at close quarters. They 
discovered that they were no match for our fellows with steel 
and in rough-and-tumble tactics. 

At Seicheprey the Germans laid their first death traps for 
the Americans. They fastened grenades to the bodies of 
dead Americans and adjusted wires so that those who han- 
dled the bodies might be maimed or killed. They left be- 
hind, in conspicuous places, attractive boxes, which, if 
picked up, would blow the finder into eternity. The New 
Englanders, in that scrimmage, learned a lot about the 
artifices of modern warfare as practiced by the Boches, 
and they learned, too, to be wary of German methods and 
"souvenirs." 

In the Seicheprey encounter the German losses were 
heavier than ours in dead, judging from the number of 
Boches buried by our men. But they claimed to have cap- 
tured more prisoners than our units did, a claim which they 
backed up by sending over a group photograph of the men 
taken. 

Apremont and Seicheprey steadied the Yankee Division 
and showed the mettle that was in it. In later operations on 
that front the Yankees always had the better of the argu- 
ment. They became masters of No Man's Land and the 
Germans had a wholesome respect for their artillery. 

In the Apremont Woods fight the 104th Infantry, an all- 
Massachusetts regiment, made up of increments from the 
Second, Sixth and Eighth Regiments of the National Guard, 
helped the French repulse a determined attack by German 
storm troops. The fight lasted three days and the enemy was 
trounced. 



142 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

The French army authorities were so pleased with the 
work of the 104th Infantry that they decorated its colors. It 
was the first American regiment thus honored by a foreign 
army. 

The French general, in conferring the decoration, said: 

"This regiment showed during the battles, April 10, 11 
and 13, the greatest audacity and a fine spirit of sacrifice. 
Subjected to very violent bombardments and attacked by 
very important German forces, it succeeded in checking a 
dangerous advance, and retook, at the point of the bayonet, 
with vigorous energy the few demolished trenches from which 
it had fallen back at the first assault." 

The men of the 104th cited for bravery were decorated 
that day also. The ceremony was held on a Sunday after- 
noon in a hollow back of the lines on the outskirts of Boucq, 
where divisional headquarters had been located. German 
and American artillery were active. The boom of cannon 
floated over the ridge. 

The sky had been overcast, but the sun broke through the 
clouds during the ceremony, adding color to a scene that will 
never be forgotten by those of us who were lucky enough to 
witness it. 

The honored regiment was drawn up in hollow square and 
the file of heroes was so long that it stretched clear across the 
meadow. At the head of the line stood the Rev. John B. 
DesValles of New Bedford, who had carried rescued wounded 
on his back under fire, and at the other end was the Rev. 
Walton S. Danker of Worcester, who had administered to 
wounded and dying like Father DesValles. Chaplain Danker 
was killed by a shell some weeks later. He and Father Des 
Valles were the first army chaplains in the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces decorated. With the others in line that day 
they received the Croix de Guerre for distinguished service. 

Six Salvation Army lassies and a sprinkling of French 
peasant girls and civilians were among the spectators on the 
hill. The regimental band played the "Star Spangled Ban- 



SEICHEPREY A REVERSE 143 

ner" and the "Marseillaise," and heavy artillery continued 
to boom in the distance. 

The French general passed smartly down the line ac- 
companied by General Edwards and staff. As the French 
officer pinned a medal on the breast of each Bay State soldier 
he congratulated him and shook his hand, and General 
Edwards had a word of praise also. 

"Cheer up, son, don't look so solemn," said General Ed- 
wards to one youngster who looked as if he was head pall- 
bearer at a funeral. "This is nothing to be downcast over. 
Smile. It's a proud day for us all, an event of historical 
importance. Remember, lad, it's the first time in history 
that an American regiment has had its colors decorated by a 
European army." 

The men took the cue, forgot their stage fright, grinned 
broadly. Midway in the line, pale and tense, stood Private 
James Corbin of Somerville. Just as the French general 
finished pinning the Croix de Guerre on his blouse, Corbin 
fell backwards in a dead faint. It was a dramatic touch. 

He was wounded and had insisted on leaving his cot in 
the hospital to receive his honor on the field with the others 
and the strain and excitement had proven too much. But he 
was himself soon again and the centre of an admiring group 
at the close of the ceremony. 

There were grim gaps in the line, marking the places of 
dead and wounded heroes of the regiment, The posthumous 
medals were sent to relatives at home and those for the 
wounded were distributed to them in the hospital later that 
day. 

During the regimental review a lieutenant from another 
regiment, standing on the sidelines, said out loud: 

"The Germans can never lick a crowd like that or lower 
that flag!" 

And they never did. 

Curious to ascertain the uppermost thought of a man just 
decorated, virtually on the field of battle, I asked Private J. 
H. Gallagher what his first thought was after the French 



144 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

general fastened the medal to his breast, and Gallagher's 
reply was: 

"I thought how proud my mother would be to hear it." 

No danger or suffering, no matter how great, was able to 
pry them away from the mother love. It was one of the most 
beautiful sentiments of army life at the front, and you saw 
it manifested in ever so many subtle ways. 

In those two April fights, which occurred so close to Con- 
cord and Lexington Day, the youngsters from home showed 
the stuff that was in them. They went in with the pluck 
and tenacity of veterans. They did all sorts of heroic stunts. 
They made sacrifices to rescue wounded comrades. Men of 
the 104th Regiment band were among those decorated that 
Sunday, as were men from the first aid units. 

The musicians turned litter-bearers and some were killed 
and wounded. The leader of the band hitched wire loops to 
his wrists in order to hold his end of the stretcher after his 
hands had become so blistered and his fingers so stiff and 
sore that he was unable to grip the handles. 

That was the kind of American grit which the raids at 
Apremont and Seicheprey revealed, a grit unbeatable, as 
subsequent operations proved. 

In spite of all that I saw later on other fronts, certain 
features of the Seicheprey fight remained fresh in my 
memory. 

There was the case of Sergeant John A. Dickman of No. 
339 Highland Avenue, Somerville. Jack used to work at the 
Riverside Press in Cambridge. He lost his left eye and right 
foot at Seicheprey and his left arm was out of commission, 
and he suffered multiple hurts, but the Heinies could not 
cripple his spirit. 

Dickman's only worry the day I chatted with him at the 
evacuation hospital was that he wouldn't be able to rejoin 
his comrades in order "to take another wallop at the Huns." 

"Gosh! if I could only get one more chance at them," said 
Dickman. "Ain't it a shame this foot is missing? Only for 
that I could go back. One eye wouldn't make any differ- 



SEICHEPREY A REVERSE 145 

ence." All through his talk Sergeant Dickman never ut- 
tered a word of regret or complaint about his own terrible 
injuries. There was no thought of self. His one burning 
desire was to get back into the fight. 

After my talk I was not surprised that surgeons and nurses 
had spoken so highly of the sturdy lad from Somerville 
whom they christened "hero of the ward," a title that sent 
me Dickman's way on the jump. 

I had heard of his case down at the advanced dressing 
station and had trailed him and other wounded back to the 
clearing hospital on the outskirts of Toul. With all his hurts 
Dickman had refused to quit until his squad, the "Fearless 
Eleven," had been rescued from the death trap into which 
they were drawn by the swirl of battle. 

Dickman was so modest that it was difficult to pry his 
story from him. He did not want to talk about himself. He 
was eager to praise his comrades and to talk about his 
brother's athletic prowess. Said he when pinned to the sub- 
ject: 

"There isn't much to tell, it all happened so quickly. 
The Huns drifted over in a swarm. I was in charge of two 
Stokes mortars and had eleven men under me. Gee! they 
were game kids. They deserve all the credit. Not a quitter 
in the gang! 

"It was our job to protect the first line of infantry until 
the artillery got into action. They told me later that our 
fire broke up the first rush of Heinies. I was glad to hear 
that. We planted our shots between the first and second 
enemy waves and broke up their formation for a spell, but 
they came like a river. 

"Our fellows fought like hell. The Boche batteries 
poured shells at us like rice at a newly married couple. 
Twenty shells dropped on our dugout. We were soon cut 
off entirely by the German barrage. The ground was all 
chewed up. Two of the gang were killed and several 
wounded right off the bat, but we stuck together and fought 
until aid came. 



146 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"We gave it to them good while we had the strength. 
Wonder any of us pulled through. And now I suppose I'll 
quit and go home like a G. A. R. vet. If I had two feet they 
couldn't send me back. I hate to leave the game this early, 
just as things are starting. Talk about fireworks! That 
was some day." 

Private Raymond Cannon of No. 69 East Pearl Street, 
New Haven, Ct., seriously wounded by shrapnel in the left 
leg, seeing that the commander of his sanitary corps was 
missing, organized a dressing station under a hail of shells 
and administered to many wounded. He refused to quit 
and was complimented on the field by superior officers. 

I could fill chapters with these personal exploits. The 
voluminous citations in the archives of the Yankee Division 
are enduring records of the valor of the New England men 
on the battlefields of France. 

One of the saddest cases that I beheld in any battle oc- 
curred at Seicheprey. Private Edmund Demunski of New 
Haven, Ct., born in Russia, but a naturalized American, 
and a brave soldier, was seriously wounded and buried up 
to his neck by a shell. He had been in the first wave and 
woke next day in No Man's Land, where he remained un- 
able to do more than open and close his eyes for two days 
and two nights in pelting rain and a temperature that pene- 
trated to the marrow. 

I talked with Demunski before he died. A shell frag- 
ment had slit his leg from hip to the knee. It was a curable 
wound and he might have recovered but for the terrible 
exposure and loss of blood as he lay buried out there. Said 
he: 

"The shells were terrible. One hit near me and the 
next I knew it was night and raining. I tried to move, but 
couldn't. All but my head and left shoulder was buried. 
I was nearer the German lines than our men. I could hear 
the Germans talking. Then I got awful thirsty and hungry. 
My leg pained. I became unconscious again. 



SEICHEPREY A REVERSE 147 

"It was daylight when I came to the next time and Ger- 
mans were in sight. I was afraid to open my eyes wide for 
fear that they would bayonet me. I would squint with one 
eye. While I was thinking I went asleep or fainted, I guess, 
and that night Germans crept past me and one was so close 
he stepped on my shoulder and grazed my face with his 
boot. 

"I would lose consciousness and come out of it again and 
again. They told me Red Cross litter-bearers got me. They 
had been signalling the Germans for permission to collect 
and bury the American dead and finally on the third day a 
German Red Cross flag answered and the American litter- 
bearers went out and dug me up. They thought I was dead 
when they carried me in, and then somebody found that my 
pulse was going and they brought me here and dressed my 
wound and I feel better now, but awful weak." 

Demunski was well-built and intelligent. On the second 
day after his arrival at the evacuation hospital he died. 
The surgeons had no hope from the start. His ordeal had 
been too much for any man, no matter how rugged. Of all 
the forms of death that came to my notice I don't recall 
any more terrible or pathetic than that of the poor Russian 
from Connecticut. 

Aside from his physical anguish, the torment of mind in 
his conscious hours must have been indescribable. And 
remember that he was a foreign-born youth who volunteered 
his services and made that sacrifice for an adopted land. 
Demunski died an American patriot. 

Some poet ought to immortalize the young men born in 
other lands who fought so gallantly for Uncle Sam. Don 
Marquis of the New York Evening Sun has paid this tribute 
in honor of the Yankees : 



148 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

THE OLD STOCK. 

(Don Marquis, New York Evening Sun) 

"Reuben Watson, Abner Jones, Eliphalet Thomas and Obadiah Freeman have 
been drafted from our town." — Item in country newspaper. 

Watch out for the chap with a Bible name, that comes from Dedham Mass. ; 

Thompson, Uriah, 

Johnson, Josiah. 
Watch out for the boy with the Bible name, from Pea vine, Arkansaw, 

Ezekiel, Josh, 

And Jared, b'gosh! 
He will bite his name in the crust of hell and think it's garden sass; 

Reuben, Abijah, 

Peleg, Elijah. 
He can yank the hind legs off a mule and eat the damned thing raw. 

The red-necked deacon named the lad right out of Holy Writ: 

(Watson, Nehemiah). 
The country parson lessoned his son to turn the other cheek 

(Jones, Hezekiah), 
But the Hun that he smites with his freckled fists will know he has been smit . 

Hey, Obadiah? 

And something solid is going to bust when he gets through being meek. 
If the Kaiser listens, one of these days, he is going to get some news 

From Smith's son, Tubar, 

And Bogg's boy, Jubal; 
Watch out for the hick with the Scripture name when he goes forth to war, 

Enoch and Seth, 

Nathan and Heth. 
He will kick the inards out of a bull and wear the hide for shoes, 

Blodgett, Abihu, 

Saunders, Elihu; 
He will bite his name in the crust of hell and pass his plate for more. 

Gettysburg and Marston Moor, Nasby, Bunker Hill; 

He squared his God with a nasal psalm and then sailed in to kill! 

Apollyon? Back to hell, Apollyon! 

Here comes the Jones' Zeke! 
And the skull that he hits, when the prayin's good, will split from crown to 
cheek! 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Army Axe 

B Traveling to a battle front from a rear area 
was always an interesting adventure. Every trip 
had its thrills. The country in the rear looked so 
beautiful and peaceful and the peasants seemed 
so unconcerned that you felt, on your initial visits, that the 
great world war was more remote when you headed for it 
than it seemed back in the United States. 

When trench warfare was in vogue, gains which might 
have been registered on a football field were considered 
news. Soon after our troops entered the line the whole 
character of fighting changed to open warfare. The French, 
in trench warfare days, cultivated their land right up to the 
edge of the battle zone. I saw aged men and women toil- 
ing in fields within shell range. I saw peaceful settings of 
this sort while a bombardment was at its height a few kilo- 
meters distant and saw blossoms shaken from fruit trees by 
the concussion. 

I saw old men and women cling to cellars of their homes 
after the populace had evacuated, with ruin all around 
them. The Marines tried to persuade a couple to leave a 
village at the Marne, but they refused. 

Motor activities always served as thermometers of 
action. Miles and miles of trucks were operated back of 
the lines at night, rushing troops, supplies and ammunition, 
while Hun fliers dropped bombs. Battles were always thus 
forecasted. You motored along congested roads, hope- 
lessly jammed at times, between foot troops and artillery 
units. You arrived at deserted villages only slightly 
damaged, at highways where lone sentries guided the way, 

149 



150 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

at villages reduced to ruins where the boom of heavy calibre 
guns was punctuated by the stutter of machine guns, and at 
roads so deserted that you sensed danger. 

When you came to such a region it was necessary to take 
cover quickly because snipers were alert. You arrived 
close to the attacking line in a world of death and desola- 
tion. The scenes were appalling, the excitement terrible. 

Tourists who expect to see the battlefields and ruins as 
they appeared during the fighting will be disappointed. 
Labor battalions work fast. They fill up mine craters and 
shell holes and build highways and bridges with astonish- 
ing speed. I have entered ruined villages close on the heels 
of retreating Germans, the streets of which were almost 
impassable, and we had to roll bodies out of the way to make 
clear a passage for our car. A week later streets were clean 
and everything looked more shipshape. 

The town of Albert was a notable example the day the 
British captured it. The flood of battle had surged back- 
ward and forward for several years, reducing that and other 
towns to powdered brick and mortar and twisted metal. 
The day we went to Peronne four giant mines blew up a 
road an hour after we had motored over it. 

Ypres is one of the most gripping ruins in Europe, with 
its remnant of Cloth Hall and the other demolished build- 
ings framing the square which is to be preserved in its 
present state as a war park. I was in Amiens when the 
people returned and when the bishop reopened the famous 
cathedral. Within a fortnight the ruined city had taken on 
a new lease of life. 

This process, coupled with time, will rub off the rough 
edges and smooth over the ruins, as a sore heals, before the 
influx of sightseers, but don't be discouraged. There will 
be specimens galore and probably for all time of how Hun 
"kultur" operated in war-scarred France and Belgium. 

Speaking of "kultur" reminds me that the rank and file 
of National Guardsmen in France accused the regular army 



THE ARMY AXE 151 

officers of exercising a "military autocracy every bit as 
severe as anything in vogue in Germany." 

The Guardsmen claimed they had gone to Europe to 
fight for democracy and that, to their amazement, they 
found it lacking in their own army. That complaint was 
the keynote of speeches after they arrived home. 

Major-General Clarence R. Edwards organized the 
Yankee Division, and with such skill and dispatch that he 
led it to France ahead of all other National Guard organiza- 
tions, beating out the Rainbow Division, which had planned 
to blaze the way. 

Under the leadership of General Edwards, the Twenty- 
sixth Division developed into a formidable fighting machine 
and the enemy soon realized and admitted it. When 
General Edwards was suddenly transferred in the height of 
operations, and ordered back to the United States to take 
command of the Northeastern Department, with head- 
quarters in Boston, it caused a hurricane of surprise and 
regret. 

It was whispered that General Edwards was "in wrong 
with the powers that be;" that "somebody wanted to get 
him," and that this prejudice was strengthened by the 
grudge which the regular army was alleged to have held 
against the National Guard. 

It was said that the Yankee Division was "made the 
goat" because of these alleged prejudices, which developed 
internal friction so acute that a crop of transfers followed. 
Those removed at the eleventh hour were Brigadier-General 
Charles H. Cole, Colonel Edward L. Logan of the 101st 
Infantry, Colonel Frank M. Hume of the 103d Infantry, 
and Major Albert C. Gray of the 101st Infantry, all of whom 
were reinstated before the division sailed for home. 

An old cry in the regular army, and one revived with 
emphasis overseas, was that the National Guard was 
honeycombed and weakened by politics and [that this evil 
must be stamped out in order to promote efficiency. The 
Guardsmen replied that the regulars played more politics 



152 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

than the National Guardsmen ever dared play, but played 
them so clumsily that they were "as conspicuous as a sore 
thumb." It was charged that commanders in the Yankee 
Division and other National Guard divisions were deliber- 
ately removed to make lucrative jobs for West Pointers. 

Such counter-accusations as I have briefly enumerated 
were subjects of everyday gossip in the American Expe- 
ditionary Forces. The bitterness between the National 
Guard and the regulars increased tremendously after the 
armistice, when there was more time to think and find fault 
and when open criticism was not likely to affect the success 
of the cause. 

The shake-up in the Yankee Division was debated all 
over France and in the Army of Occupation in Germany. 
Congressman James A. Gallivan's famous "whipper-snap- 
per" speech proved a sensation. His defence of the Na- 
tional Guard caused him to be christened "the Congressman 
of the American Expeditionary Forces." Because of the 
transfers, the Yankee Division became the storm center of 
the overseas army and the Thirty-fifth Division from 
Missouri soon after came into the spotlight. A congres- 
sional investigation was inevitable. 

Officers and enlisted men loved General Edwards, a tall, 
white-haired, fatherly regular, who never overlooked the 
welfare and interests of the men in the ranks. 

I never saw anything to beat it. No matter with whom 
you talked, whether latest recruit or officer, every one 
sounded his praise. Their regard for him was little short of 
worship. This sentiment was not exaggerated. I talked 
with the men, under all manner of circumstances, and I 
know. 

No wonder there was such sadness when he turned over 
his command to another and went home. Those were dark 
days for the Twenty-sixth. Everything seemed to crack 
at once. General Edwards' aide-de-camp, Captain "Nat" 
Simpkins of Brookline, one of the most popular young 
officers in the division, died from complications arising 



THE ARMY AXE 153 

from pneumonia, just before his chief departed. The zeal 
and untiring efforts of Simpkins and his sunny disposition 
contributed in no small measure to the success of the 
division. 

Then General Edwards received a cable announcing the 
death of his daughter. The gloom caused by this latest 
bereavement is best reflected in a letter in which the Rev. 
M. J. O'Connor of Roxbury, senior chaplain of the division 
and formerly chaplain of the 101st infantry, sent to General 
Edwards : 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 
FRANCE, 

October 17, 1918. 
"My dear General Edwards: 

"I know how futile are words to assuage the grief that has come 
to you in the loss of your only daughter. I know how dear she 
was to you, and her loss by death at a time when you are far from 
home and so deeply interested in the destinies of the men under 
your command will draw from you all the virility of your manhood 
to sustain the blow. 

"I realize that a heart like yours which has caused you to show 
so much sympathy for afflicted parents and wounded soldiers must 
feel deeply the grief that has come to you. Were it possible for 
the officers and the men under your command to lighten this bur- 
den, every man of them would feel it an honor if his life could 
restore hers to you. 

"But we are powerless, yet if there be consolation in knowing 
that there are 30,000 hearts which desire to lessen your sorrow, 
the Twenty-sixth Division grieves with you. 

"May God, Who has placed this burden on you and your good 
wife, give both of you the strength to accept it with Christian 
fortitude. 

" Sincerely yours, 

"M. J. O'CONNOR, 

"Chaplain." 

In that letter Chaplain O'Connor expressed the senti- 
ments of every man in the division, General Edwards re- 
plied thus: 



154 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 
FRANCE, 

October 25, 1918. 

"My Dear Chaplain O'Connor: 

"Your note will be treasured by my poor wife. It is beautifully 
like you and I appreciate it very much. 

"I got an official cablegram from the War Department about 
Army Nurse Bessie Edwards, quoting a message from Mrs. Ed- 
wards, the first I had received, that she had cabled me three times, 
that she was with our daughter to the last, and that she died happy, 
and that Bessie had sworn in as a nurse with a chance to come to 
France. 

"I did not believe that God's inscrutable ways would demand a 
daughter for the cause and a second, but more successful sacrifice, 
than the other member of the family. However, it has come and 
it must be borne, together with this last separation. 

"Just say to the individuals of this Yankee Division as you 
see them that my one wish is that they should carry on under the 
new commander and continue in their glorious record. That is the 
thing that is on our conscience that nobody can deprive us of, and 
their loyal devotion and success are a great compensation and a 
great comfort to me. 

"I will see you before I go. 

"Faithfully yours, 

"C. R. EDWARDS." 



With heart torn, General Edwards was a soldier through 
it all, as this letter shows. No finer index could be given 
of the man. 

Events happened rapidly thereafter. On Oct. 26 
Colonel Edward L. Logan, a Harvard graduate and judge 
of the South Boston District Court, was relieved of com- 
mand of the 101st Infantry and sent to Blois, the reclassi- 
fication camp, otherwise known as the "morgue." 

It was averred that he had not been sufficiently prompt 
in the execution of certain orders. His transfer came like a 
thunderclap. The 101st, made up chiefly of the old Ninth 



THE ARMY AXE 155 

Regiment, with a war strength filling from the Fifth Massa- 
chusetts Infantry, had been commanded in the Spanish war 
by Colonel Logan's father, General Lawrence Logan. 

"Eddie," then a Harvard student, went with his dad as 
a top sergeant in the Cuban campaign, and was himself 
colonel of the regiment when the Bay State National Guard 
went to the Mexican border in June, 1916. 

He had the honor of commanding the first National 
Guard regiment to leave the United States for active service 
in France. I remember how his father embraced him and 
kissed him on the cheek, and, holding him at arms' length, 
a hand gripping each shoulder, looked him straight in the 
eye, the day the regiment set out for Europe from the South 
Framingham camp, saying in broken voice: 

"Do your best, son. No man can do more. I would 
give much to be young enough to be going with you, boy." 

And his mother tried vainly to stifle tears with a smile. 

The order of transfer came within a fortnight of the 
armistice. Colonel Logan had gallantly led his regiment 
in every action, taking the same chances as his men in the 
front line and lying out all night in the rain and mud under 
terrific shell fire. He had many narrow escapes. Men 
were killed on all sides of him. The day Chaplain Danker 
was killed fragments of a shell missed Colonel Logan, Chap- 
lain M. J. O'Connor and several others by inches. 

On Nov. 1, ten days before the armistice, Colonel Frank 
M. Hume of Houlton, Me., was relieved of command of the 
103d Infantry, made up of the old Second Maine Infantry, 
the First New Hampshire Regiment and increments from 
the First Vermont and the Sixth and Eighth Massachusetts 
Regiments. 

Colonel Hume developed a tip-top regiment which en- 
joyed the very rare distinction of never having had a man 
captured while holding a defensive sector. As in the case 
of General Cole, the reason ascribed for his transfer was that 
he had permitted his men to fraternize with the enemy. 



156 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Brigadier-General Charles H. Cole was relieved of his 
command — the Fifty-second Infantry Brigade, composed 
of the 103d and 104th Regiments. He had enlisted as a 
private in the 101st Infantry, commanded by Colonel Logan, 
his life-long friend, when the National Guard was called out 
for oversea service. 

He was made lieutenant and soon after commissioned 
captain and commanded a large detachment of recruits 
which he whipped into shape in brisk order, and, within a 
few months, was made brigadier-general, a meteoric but 
merited advancement. 

General Cole's transfer came on Oct. 8. He was charged 
with permitting his troops to fraternize with the enemy and 
was sent to Blois. 

No sooner had Colonel Logan established himself at 
Blois than he assumed the responsibility of acting as counsel 
for General Cole, Colonel Hume and himself in proceedings 
for reinstatement, on the ground that all three had been 
illegally deprived of their commands. In addition, Colonel 
Logan handled and won upward of forty miscellaneous 
cases. In fact, he had such success that the officers at Blois 
urged him to "hang out a shingle." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Conspiracy Charged 

B Colonel Logan framed a defence for General 
Cole and represented him at the hearings. General 
Cole offered evidence to show that instead of allow- 
ing his troops to fraternize with the Germans, he 
had been the first officer in the division personally to issue 
an order against fraternizing. 

General Cole's case was so clearly and forcibly pre- 
sented that he was sent back to his old command by order 
of General Pershing. The order read as follows: 

France, November 30, 1918. 
From : Adjutant-General, A. E. F. 

To: Brigadier-General Charles H. Cole, Centre of Information, 
A. P. O. 

Subject : Relief from Fifty-second Infantry Brigade. 

1. I am directed by the commander-in-chief to inform you 
that upon his personal examination of the papers reporting the 
facts incident to your relief from command of the Fifty-second 
Infantry Brigade, he is of the opinion that the facts did not war- 
rant your relief and he has, therefore, directed that you be reas- 
signed to your former brigade. 

2. Accordingly, orders will be issued in the near future. By 
command of General Pershing. 

ROBERT C. DAVIS, 

Adjutant-General. 

This order speaks for itself. It was a complete vindica- 
tion. With the reinstatement of General Cole, the way was 
cleared for Colonel Hume, commanding the 103d Infantry, 
which was in General Cole's brigade. As General Cole's 

157 



158 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

charges were dismissed, those against Colonel Hume, 
alleging fraternizing with the enemy, were automatically 
weakened. 

Colonel Logan drew up a statement for Colonel Hume 
and drafted his own defence last. Both were given hearings. 
Colonel Logan's case was investigated exhaustively. He 
was charged with inertia. There were at least three hear- 
ings. His declaration was spirited and voluminous, con- 
sisting of more than thirty typewritten pages, much of it 
too violent for publication. 

He reviewed his own record and that of the regiment, 
pointing out that no colonel in the American Expeditionary 
Forces had a longer front line service. He argued that the 
accomplishments of his regiment were the best proof of the 
success of his command and a contradiction of the charge 
upon which his transfer was based. 

He called attention to the fact that if his services as a 
regimental commander were not satisfactory, it was strange 
it had not been discovered earlier and that he had been 
permitted to lead his men through all the major engagements 
and be dropped at the eleventh hour. 

These, in brief, were his contentions, coupled with the 
claim that his order of transfer came late one afternoon 
during a battle, and as he had planned the regimental 
operations his lieutenant-colonel had requested him to 
remain and see them through. This prevented him from 
going to division headquarters until the next day, a fact 
which, according to his declaration, was cited as an instance 
of failing promptly to execute a command. Colonel Logan 
also alleged that the charges were lodged and his transfer 
ordered by a division commander who had been in com- 
mand of the Twenty-sixth Division less than forty-eight 
hours and who had never seen him. 

Recommendations for promotion of men in his regiment 
were made by Colonel Logan from time to time, but were 
rejected. He charged gross discriminations and persecu- 
tions. He claimed there was a conspiracy to "break" him. 



CONSPIRACY CHARGED 159 

At the close of his vigorous defence of his own case a 
member of the trial board remarked, "And they charged 
him with inertia!" 

Word reached division headquarters at Eccomoy on or 
about Feb. 9, 1919, that General Pershing had ordered the 
reinstatement of Colonels Logan and Hume. There was 
great rejoicing in the Yankee Division that day. 

"Regular old home week," remarked a major. 

"General Edwards is the only one missing now," said a 
chaplain. 

General Cole went to work at once to plan a celebration 
for the returning regimental commanders. Meanwhile the 
family circle was enlarged by the unexpected return of 
Brigadier-General John H. Sherburne of Brookline, member 
of the Massachusetts Legislature, who came back to com- 
mand the Fifty-first Artillery Brigade of the Yankee Division 
on the homeward voyage, a very fine and fitting honor to 
an officer that helped develop one of the most efficient 
artillery outfits in the American Expeditionary Forces. 

General Sherburne had been commander of the 101st 
Artillery Regiment, which grew out of the old First Massa- 
chusetts Artillery Regiment, on the Mexican border. 

Following his promotion he was transferred to the 
Ninety-second Division, made up entirely of colored troops, 
and commanded an artillery brigade. 

He paid tribute to the negro artillery the day I lunched 
with him in a chateau twenty kilometers from Eccomoy. 
He said: 

"It was astonishing how rapidly the colored troops 
developed in gunnery. It was a departure for them, but 
they went to work with a will and they made good to such 
a degree that I would match my brigade with any of them. 
I had perfect confidence in the batteries. I am happy to 
pay this compliment to men who worked so hard and con- 
scientiously and who conducted themselves so bravely. 

"While at Chaumont one day I met General Pershing 
and he told me he was planning to send me home with the 



160 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

artillery brigade of the Yankee Division, but weeks passed 
and I heard no more about it. 

"The Ninety-second finally arrived at Brest and vicinity 
and I had actually reached the dock when I again acci- 
dentally met General Pershing. He asked me what I was 
doing there and why I was not with the Twenty-sixth 
Division. I told him the order of transfer had never come 
through. It did then in a hurry, and here I am among 
the old gang and happy to be going with the division." 

After the announcement of the reinstatement of Colonels 
Logan and Hume days passed before they reported at 
Eccomoy because both had been asked to preside at court- 
martials in Blois. 

Colonel Horace P. Hobbs bade farewell to the 101st In- 
fantry as soon as official notice was served on him that 
Colonel Logan was to resume command. Colonel Hobbs 
eulogized the regiment. He said it was one of the best in 
the American Expeditionary Forces, and he regretted to 
leave it and the Yankee Division. 

Brigadier-General P. D. Glassford praised the Fifty-first 
Artillery Brigade when he turned over command to General 
Sherburne and Colonel P. W. Arnold surrendered command 
of the 103d Infantry to Colonel Hume with fitting cere- 
mony. It was not until Feb. 14 that Colonels Logan and 
Hume reported at division headquarters and then hurried 
to the outlying villages where their regiments were drawn 
up to welcome them. It was a stirring scene. 

The returning officers said they were moved by the fervor 
of their men. Festivities followed. No sooner were the 
commanders reinstated than subordinate officers who had 
been transferred began to return. It became a regular 
"Old Home Week." 

Major Albert C. Gray of Medford, commander of the 
Third Battalion of the 101st Infantry, who had been trans- 
ferred on the charge of "discussing orders," was tried and 
exonerated and returned to his old outfit. His was the last 
case defended by Colonel Logan at Blois. 



CONSPIRACY CHARGED 161 

The next to return was Captain John J. Lydon, a Boston 
newspaperman, who had been supply officer in the 101st 
Infantry and who had won a promotion in the field from the 
rank of lieutenant. He had been transferred to the Twenty- 
eighth Division. Lieutenant John W. Casey of Brookline, 
who was shifted to the postal service for a spell, after the 
armistice, also came back, and so did Major John J. Barry, 
formerly commander of the old "Brickbat Battalion" of 
the 101st Infantry, who soon after was made a lieutenant- 
colonel for his tireless and efficient work in the army mail 
service. 

General Edwards was relieved of the command of the 
Yankee Division Oct. 25, 1918, and was succeeded by 
Brigadier-General Frank E. Bamford, who was relieved 
Nov. 19 by Brigadier-General Harry C. Hale. General 
Edwards cabled his congratulations to General Hale on 
his appointment. 

The Yankee Division remained in the sector north of 
Verdun until Nov. 18, seven days after the armistice, when 
it was relieved by the Sixth Division and ordered to march 
to the eighth training area at Montigny le Hoi, east of 
Chaumont, a distance of 137 kilometers. The hike was fin- 
ished in seven days by all but the artillery units, which were 
delayed by lack of horses. The 101st and 102d Artillery 
Regiments remained at Suilly until late in December, when 
motor trucks were used to remove its guns from the lines. 
The artillerymen and their equipment were sent to Montigny 
le Roi by train. 

When the division moved from the rest area at Montigny le 
Roi to the Le Mans embarkation area, it was predicted that 
it would sail about March 1, although no official date had 
been fixed and later guesses ran all the way to April. The 
first units sailed from Brest on Thursday, April 27, 1919. 

I spent nearly six months on the Mexican border with 
the National Guard units which made up the nucleus of 
the Twenty-sixth Division when it arrived in France. I 
accompanied the organizations on the hikes across the desert 



162 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

and through clouds of alkali dust to Las Cruces, New 
Mexico. Little did we think during that tour, which 
tuned up all the outfits wonderfully and developed efficiency 
in every branch of the service, that it was but a forerunner 
of sterner duty abroad. 

I recall how civilians in New England used to sympa- 
thize with our doughboys while they were on sentry duty 
at home, guarding railroads, bridges, water and lighting 
plants, factories and arsenals, having been called out 
within a few months of their return from the Mexican 
frontier. Civilians thought the guard duty cold and 
hazardous, but it was child's play compared with what they 
faced when they took up positions in the battle line in 
France. 

I remember the 101st Infantry marching from the camp 
to the train in South Framingham on a bright September 
afternoon in 1917. The church bells tolled a farewell, and 
the town was gay with flags, but somehow though the crowd 
was as large, the send-off was less boisterous than when the 
troops left for the border. There was grim business ahead 
this time, and the men, women and children who lined the 
curbings showed their concern. There was a note of sadness 
in what had been staged as a celebration. 

I heard an old woman remark: 

"Poor boys. Many of them never will come back." 

And they did not — the brave fellows who sleep under the 
rows of unpainted wooden crosses on the hills of France. 

Ranks were filled by men from Mississippi, Florida, 
California and Montana and other points. They rooted 
and fought for the glory of New England, just as did the 
fellows from Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut and the Bay State. 

The same condition existed in every other division. 
There had to be fillings from other States owing to the heavy 
toll of war. The Yankee Division went to France well 
equipped and well trained. It eagerly and quickly assimi- 
lated the art of modern warfare as taught by French and 



CONSPIRACY CHARGED 163 

British instructors. The Yankee Division was the first to 
copy the French and British system of branding all vehicles 
with insignia. It adopted the monogram "YD," and mules 
and horses were thus branded long before division emblems 
became the rule in the American Expeditionary Forces. 

Later every officer and enlisted man in every division 
sported his respective division emblem on the left sleeve just 
below the shoulder. The "YD" was about as tasty as any 
of them. Motor truck units in the Yankee Division 
painted sub-unit emblems such as anchors, eagles and 
miniature replicas of Bunker Hill Monument on their 
vehicles. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

President Wilson's Visit 

^Fy% Christmas, 1918, will live forever in the memories 
\r^ 1 of the men of the Yankee Division, for on that 

1 1 day President Wilson reviewed 10,000 picked 

American troops from the combat divisions of the 

American Expeditionary Forces, and a crack battalion from 

the 10£d Infantry of the New England division held the 

right of line. 

It was the first review of American troops in Europe by 
the President, their commander-in-chief. It was held at 
Humes, near Langres. 

In the column with the detachment from the Yankee 
Division were units from the Sixth Division, Twenty-ninth, 
Seventy-seventh, Eightieth and Eighty-second Divisions, 
and Troops K and M of the Sixth Cavalry, General Persh- 
ing's own outfit riding black horses and carrying guidons. 

Announcement of the selection of the Yankee Division 
to occupy the right of line in the parade was made in the 
following letter, which admitted officially that "the Twenty- 
sixth Division had the longest period of service in France," 
bearing out what I claimed in an earlier chapter. 

HEADQUARTERS FIRST ARMY, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE, 

Dec. 20, 1918. 
From: Chief of Staff, First Army, A. E. F. 
To: Commanding General, Twenty-sixth Division, A. E. F. 
Subject: Visit of President of the United States. 

1. The Army Commander desires me to inform you that, on 
the recommendation of the commander-in-chief, the President has 

164 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S VISIT 165 

selected the Twenty-sixth Division as being the division he will 
visit on^Christmas Day. This selection was made on the ground 
that the Twenty-sixth Division had the longest period of service in 
France. 

2. The Army Commander desires that you be present at the 
Presidential review at Humes, which is to start at 10.30 A. M. on 
Dec. 25, 1918, so that you may conduct the President from 
the review ground to such town or towns in your area as he may 
desire to visit. The Army Commander desires me to say that all 
organizations in the area should be prepared for this visit, billets 
properly policed and men lined up outside of same awaiting the 
arrival of the President. He also desires that the non-commis- 
sioned officers in charge of quarters be ready and on the alert to 
precede the President and the commander-in-chief into such 
billets as they may desire to inspect. 

3. The President has expressed a desire to eat Christmas din- 
ner with the men, and to that end it is directed that you select 
some organization which the President and his party can visit 
at dinner time and eat the soldiers' dinner with the men. In the 
party it is estimated that there will be somewhere in the neighbor- 
hood of forty persons. 

H. A. DRUM, 
Official. Chief of Staff. 

Laurence Halstead. 
Colonel, General Staff. 
A. C. of S., G-3. 

The detachment from the Yankee Division made such 
a good showing Christmas Day that General Pershing sent 
this congratulatory telegram: 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE, 

Dec. 29, 1918. 
General Orders No. 121. 

The following telegram is published for the information of the 
command : 

G. H. Q., Dec. 26, 1918. 
O. G., Twenty-sixth Division. 

"I desire to congratulate the division on the excellent work of 
the battalion which represented it as the guard of honor at Chau- 
mont, on the fine appearance and discipline manifested by the 



166 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

men during the visit of the President of the United States to the 
billets of the division and on the splendid appearance made by the 
detachments representing the division in the review for the Presi- 
dent at Humes, France, Dec. 25, 1918. 

PERSHING. 
By command of Major-General Hale. 

Lieutenant William J. Blake, commanding the Head- 
quarters Company of the 101st Infantry, formerly a football 
star at Harvard, decided to prepare a banquet fit for the 
chief executive of the nation. "Billy" coached the company 
cook and laid in special dishes. 

Color Sergeant Eddie Creed, son of Judge Creed of the 
Boston Municipal Court, polished up his oratory. He was 
selected to welcome President Wilson on behalf of the 
doughboys. 

Eddie was called the "Silver-tongued orator of the 
Yankee Division," because he was sent back to the States 
to speak in the Liberty Loan campaign and returned. He 
proved a whirlwind from all accounts. He entertained the 
gang for months with his experiences as a Liberty Loan 
stumper. 

Sergeant Jimmy Loughlin, whom I met away up front 
during the final hours of fighting, had his hair cut for the 
occasion, and Sergeant-Ma j or George Gilbody, a journalist 
in civil life, paid a buck private two francs to polish his hob- 
nailed boots and borrowed Lieutenant C. Healey's best 
breeches. He wanted Sergeant Doren S. Lyons' tunic, but 
Doren calculated he'd sort of slick up himself. 

The table groaned under the weight of good things and 
Eddie Creed kept rehearsing all the Daniel Webster passages 
he could think of and the reception line was agreed upon 
and 

President Wilson did not eat with them after all. He 
changed his mind and dined with the officers of the division. 
Eddie Creed vowed he'd pickle his speech until Gilbody ran 
for Congress. The President's Christmas repast was pre- 
pared by Mess Sergeant Herbert A. Hoey, who owned 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S VISIT 167 

a restaurant in Worcester, and he was assisted by Sergeant 
Paul Dufourd, who conducted a restaurant in Boston. They 
served turkey and all the "fixin's." The typographical 
section got out an elaborate eight-page illustrated souvenir 
menu which astonished the guests and tickled the whole 
division. 

President Wilson in the course of his address said : 

"And now we are to hail the fruits of everything you 
have conquered since you came over — what you came over 
for — and you have done what it was appointed for you to 
do. . . . Everybody at home is proud of you, and has fol- 
lowed every movement of this great army with confidence 
and affection. The whole people of the United States are 
waiting to welcome you home with an acclaim which prob- 
ably has never greeted any other army, because our country 
is like this country. We have been proud of the stand 
taken, of the purpose for which this war was entered into 
by the United States. You knew what we expected of you 
and you did it." 

It took Lieutenant Blake and his crew some time to re- 
cover from the disappointment. Sergeant Creed was eulogiz- 
ing some of his comrades Christmas night. He said the 
chaplains and the officers agreed that no one man in the 
Yankee Division did more to buck up the spirits and 
morale of the troops than his running-mate, Color Sergeant 
William Connery, son of former Mayor Connery of Lynn. 
"Billy" proved the king-pin entertainer of the Yankee 
Division. 

Creed told also how Sergeant-Major Gilbody of Dor- 
chester, whose duties as regimental clerk should have kept 
him at regimental post of command, had taken part in 
several raids with rifle and grenades. George wore a 
wound stripe. He was gassed one night, but recovered 
"tout de suite." 

Lieutenant Blake, who made good and who had re- 
peatedly exhibited a courage that everyone knew he pos- 
sessed, interrupted Creed's conversation, saying: 



168 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"Eddie is too bashful to talk about himself. One time a 
bunch of our fellows were cut off. They were in a hazardous 
position and in need of food. Volunteers were called for. 
Sergeant Greed agreed to lead a relief squad and he did. 
Several of the squad were wounded by a fusillade of machine 
gun bullets, but Eddie turned the trick. He was always 
there on the show down." 

I heard just as nice things about Sergeant Jimmy Lough- 
lin, Lieutenant Healey of Charlestown, and others. 

Bandmaster Edward M. L'Africain of the 101st Infantry, 
cornet soloist in the Boston Symphony Orchestra, developed 
what was looked upon as the best band in the American 
Expeditionary Forces. 

He had the distinction of leading the massed band of the 
division when General Pershing held his final review of the 
Twenty-sixth in the Eccomoy area. 

Every division had its troupe of entertainers, some of 
whom became so clever that they gave performances before 
other divisions. The Twenty-seventh Division of New 
York had an all-professional cast which played before King 
George and made a hit with the Tommies while the division 
with the Thirtieth, composed of troops from the Carolinas 
and Tennessee, was preparing for its successful attack 
with the Australians against the Hindenburg line. 

Many of the doughboys acquired skill as female imper- 
sonators. There were rivals of Julian Eltinge galore 
and some were so coquettish and togged out so bewitchingly 
that strange soldiers flirted with them. Lieutenant John 
P. King, author and actor of Augusta, Ga., and New York, 
had charge of the Yankee Division performers and he re- 
cruited a versatile crew. They organized June 28, 1918, 
and were the "oldest theatrical troupe in the American Ex- 
peditionary Forces," as programs cited. 

The opening performance was given during an air raid in 
Toul, in the presence of a capacity audience in which sat one 
corps and four divisional commanders. They played under 
weird and strenuous circumstances at times, in schools and 



PRESIDENT WILSON'S VISIT 169 

stables and in the open, when weather permitted, using a 
canvas flooring for a stage. ?> 

"The Follies of the American Expeditionary Forces 
was the title of the production and it was a scream. The 
stage manager and organizer of the show was First Class 
Private John J. Chaisson, K Company, 103d Infantry. 
There was a ten-piece jazz orchestra directed by Musician 
Alphons A, Walker, 102d Field Artillery. 

The musical specialties were: Private Frank Depierro, 
M Company, 103d Infantry, jazz violinist; First Class 
Private Stuart Chapin, Princeton '20, Battery A, 101st 
Artillery, trick banjo soloist; quartet— Corporal P. J. 
Cuffe, Jr., Battery E, 101st Artillery, Privates James F. 
McEntee, A Company, 101st Infantry, Charles E. Bissett, 
Battery E, 101st Artillery, and Allen R. Tailby, Battery A, 
101st Artillery. Tailby sang solos. 

Acrobatic stunts were done by First Class Private Arthur 
Grossman, Supply Company, 101st Artillery, Private Leo 
A. Connolly, F Company, 101st Infantry, and Wagoner 
Alfred J. Lorean, Supply Company, 101st Artillery. 

Bugler Arthur L. Park, B Company, 103d Infantry, did 
a clown sketch. First Class Private George L. McGinley, 
103d Machine Gun Battalion, impersonated Elsie Janis in 
tip-top fashion and did a "parlor dance" with Private 
Richard A. Dana of Headquarters Troop. After a lightning 
change McGinley did a snappy "hoola-hoola," which always 
brought down the house. 

Corporals Alfred Pagnin, B Company, 101st Supply 
Train, and Edward A. Clear, Headquarters Company, 103d 
Infantry, known as "The Pussy-Footing Corporals," did a 
clog dance. A comedy sketch, including a Jew dialogue, 
was put on by Privates Philip A. Gero, Jr., Battery B, 101st 
Artillery, and John J. Lane of the same battery. 

Private Victor Rottman, a professional movie actor, did 
a song and comedy act. Private James F. McEntee made 
an excellent Irish comedian. Private James Jacobson, B 
Company, 101st Engineers, impersonated a negro comedian. 



170 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Jacobson had a dialogue with Corporal Ira T. Webster 
of Battery A, 101st Artillery. First Class Private Royal K. 
Hayes of Battery A, 101st Artillery, recited poems which he 
composed himself and they were popular with the dough- 
boys. Private John Elliott, 101st Ambulance Company, 
told stories in dialect. 

The stage hands were Corporal Leon L. Burdick, Supply 
Company, 102d Artillery; Private John W. Durkee, Com- 
pany A, 101st Engineers; Private George T. Osgood, Com- 
pany F, 101st Engineers; Wagoner Cable Salter and Cor- 
poral Edward E. Perkins of the 101st Engineers. 

The members of the jazz orchestra were Sergeant Thayer 
Kingsley, Corporal Chester L. Kingsley and Corporal 
Frederick M. Kingsley, all of A Company, 101st Engineers; 
Private Ear] D. Cummings, Battery A, 102d Artillery; 
Private Charles S. Temple, Battery A, 101st Artillery; 
Private Robert L. Hoag, Battery A, 102d Artillery, and 
First Class Private Albert Smith, Battery B, 101st Artillery. 

The show ended with a comedy sketch called "Sherman 
Said It," by First Class Private John J. Chaisson, in which 
Philip A. Gero and James F. McEntee took the principal 
parts, and it was a riot. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The Fang of War 

BIn warfare, death is appraised as the "supreme 
sacrifice," but I met cases worse than death, cases 
where death would have been the easier and the 
more welcome route. 
I came across men whose lungs had been seared and 
shrivelled by gas. I met men who had been blinded and 
others hopelessly crippled. I saw one youngster whose lower 
jaw had been blown away and they had harnessed his left 
arm into the cavity where the bone was slowly being grafted 
to serve, when amputated and shaped, as a new jaw. 

Medical experts will have interesting things to tell the 
profession and the public about the herculean operations 
performed under the stress of battle. 

I mention these things to show that many Americans 
who went overseas to fight for democracy and the honor of 
our flag and nation often made bigger sacrifices and suffered 
more, physically and mentally, than did men who were in- 
stantly killed. The sufferings of many soldiers abroad were 
multiplied by news from home during the influenza epidemic 
that parents and wives and other near relatives had died. 

Frequently it became necessary to break this news to 
men who were in critical condition themselves. There 
were weeks when about all the news we received from home 
concerned the deaths of persons who had been close friends 
and neighbors. The "flu" caused upward of 85,000 deaths 
in the United States, approximately 10,000 more than the 
total deaths in the American Expeditionary Forces due to 
battle, disease and accidents. 
So worries were mutual. 

171 



172 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

I picked up home news at times in the most out-of-the-way 
places and under the most singular circumstances. I heard 
in a dugout one Sunday night in the Argonne forest of the 
deaths of Postmaster Murray and his wife and of Eddie 
Martin, baseball writer for the Boston Globe, and his bride. 

I had been harvesting news at advanced p. c.'s all after- 
noon. Shelling was brisk and sunshine had brought un- 
usual air activities. German and American flyers fought 
several duels over our heads. 

I wanted news of a morning operation from a New York 
unit, and, crawling into a dugout, was surprised to meet 
Captain John F. Cronin of South Boston, formerly attached 
to the old Ninth Regiment, acting as intelligence officer 
with New York units. Captain Cronin had clippings 
which his wife had sent to him from Boston newspapers. I 
read the details of Postmaster Murray's death and of the 
double funeral of Eddie Martin and his bride. 

I saw men go into battle after they had received word 
that wife, mother, father, brother, sister or sweetheart had 
died of influenza. It is difficult to imagine a bitterer ordeal 
or one that so sorely tested a man. 

I don't know a man in the Yankee Division who gave 
more to his country in time of need, whose sacrifice was 
greater than that of Major Christopher Lee of the 101st 
Infantry. 

"Chris" is big and handsome. He had everything to 
live for, a fine home and a wife that was a real pal. As 
captain he commanded I Company on the Mexican border. 
He went to France a captain, and, after a course at the 
general staff school, became adjutant of the Fifty-first In- 
fantry Brigade under Brigadier-General Traub. Just before 
the St. Mihiel drive he was transferred to the 102d Infantry 
and led a battalion, still a captain. He won the commission 
of major on Oct. 1, for gallantry in action. 

"Chris" led the first assault company in the Bois de 
Haulont so effectively that he smashed the German positions. 
He was seriously wounded in the groin and suffered other 



THE FANG OF WAR 173 

hurts from a shell that burst very near him. While in a 
hospital back of the lines, suffering great pain, his wife died, 
a victim of the "flu." 

Mrs. Lee had been one of the leading spirits in a group 
of young Boston women who had been active in war welfare 
work. She had done much for the regiment and for the 
American soldier in general and had worked zealously on a 
committee that planned a greeting for the homecoming 
troops. She and several others on that committee died 
suddenly, died before they had the thrill enjoyed by the 
thousands who welcomed the troopships home and who saw 
the parade of the Yankee Division. 

It was some time before they dared break the news to 
Major Lee and when he finally learned it on his cot in a 
French hospital, his grief was overpowering. He is apt to 
be crippled for life, his wife is gone and his home broken up 
and he was for a long time an invalid in a Boston hospital. 
He spent months in a hospital abroad. 

The tax of war for him was heavy. On the day of the 
divisional review he was driven out to Camp Devens in a 
limousine by a Red Cross girl and was given a rousing wel- 
come by officers and men. Company I men nearly lifted 
the roof off the barracks cheering their former gallant com- 
mander. "Chris" came over as a casual and landed in New 
York, after Colonel Logan's regiment came home. Captain 
Hugh Maguire, formerly regimental quartermaster, who 
directed Mrs. Lee's funeral and who was best man at their 
wedding, met Major Lee at the dock. 

Major Lee was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross 
by the American Army and a Croix de Guerre by the French 
for bravery. They didn't come any pluckier than "Chris." 

Everybody in the Yankee Division was proud of the 
showing made by Major Thomas F. Foley, who as captain 
had led the "Emmet Guards" of Worcester. "Tom" was a 
police inspector before going to war and returned to the 
force as a lieutenant. 



174 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"Tom" might have evaded service because of his age 
and the fact that he is the father of three children, but he 
was in the National Guard when the call came and had 
served during the tour on the Mexican border and he said 
he was eager to serve as a legacy and inspiration to his sons. 
That's the kind of a daddy the Foley children have. And 
he came back to them unscratched and stronger than he 
had been in years, with a Distinguished Service Cross pinned 
on his tunic. 

Tom Foley, after winning promotion on the battlefield, 
left G Company to command the Third Battalion of the 
101st Infantry, succeeding Major James F. Hickey of Na- 
tick, formerly commander of L Company. Major Hickey, 
veteran of the Cuban and Philippine campaigns, conducted 
a raid in the Toul sector known as "Hickey's Raid" and led 
his battalion with success until his return home in September. 

Major Foley had the reputation of being as "cool as a 
cake of ice" in action. His quiet bravery made him con- 
spicuous in many engagements, especially at Chateau 
Thierry, where he led his battalion with a dash that was the 
talk of the sector. Tom was as courageous as he was good- 
natured. He lives at No. 84 Lovell Street, Worcester. 
When decorated with a Distinguished Service Cross he 
received the following citation : 

"For repeated acts of extraordinary heroism in action near 
Vaux, July 15-22, 1918. Throughout the four days of the advance 
Captain Foley (this was prior to his promotion) commanded and 
led his battalion with exceptional bravery and judgment, there- 
by inspiring his men. When strong resistance was encountered 
he personally went forward and reconnoitered the terrain under 
heavy machine gun fire, and, on July 15 and again on July 22, he 
personally led his battalion in a successful attack." 

The men from Worcester said Danny McCormack, the 
lilliputian actor, famous as Jeff in Mutt and Jeff, and for 
years mascot of the Emmet Guards, could have had no end 
of beds and hiding places over there, with so many "rabbit 



THE FANG OF WAR 175 

holes" handy. It was warmer overseas than along the bor- 
der, Danny. German shells and bombs were thicker than 
hoofs at equitation drill. 

Major William J. McCarthy of South Boston was an- 
other Al fighter. He was connected with a safety razor con- 
cern in private life. * ' Mac ' ' was one of the handsome men of 
the division and a glutton for work. His pep was con- 
tagious. He jumped from captain to major while the 
division was in the Toul sector. 

One of his hardest fights was in the Rupt-en-Woevre 
ravine in the St. Mihiel push, in which battle his chum, Cap- 
tain Joseph McConnell, was killed by a shell. With German 
batteries hurling death from the heights, Major McCarthy 
and his men advanced and fought the Boches at close quar- 
ters. They fought hand-to-hand five hours while the 102d 
Infantry stood in reserve. McCarthy and his men chopped 
their way through a stonewall resistance and captured 
prisoners and valuable ground. Companies A, B, C and 
D did great work in that battle. 

In the closing weeks of fighting in the hills north of 
Verdun Major McCarthy and his battalion were main- 
stays. McCarthy was gassed and almost collapsed from 
physical exhaustion. He had to go to a hospital for a spell. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Soldier Poets 

B American soldiers who went overseas to fight for 
democracy and who survived are bigger men intel- 
lectually because of the hardships and the expe- 
rience. 

They returned with new ideals and broader vision. 
They are more sober in their views and speech. They will be 
more appreciative of home influence and comforts. They 
are more analytical and sympathetic. They are tenderer. 

They are changed men. Study your son, brother, 
husband or sweetheart who served in a combat division, and 
judge for yourself. 

War mellowed most men who took any part in it. 
And one potent effect that was bound to come as soon as they 
got into "cits" and settled in their walks of life was the 
rekindling and the growth of ambition. 

You are going to hear from officers and men who were in 
the American Expeditionary Forces. The soldier of today 
is going to be the leader of tomorrow. 

He is going to make himself felt in finance, industry, 
literature and art and in legislative halls. He is going to direct 
business. He is going to make laws. He is going to govern. 

The risk was great and the going hard, but although 
they would not care to go through it again, the majority 
admit that they would not have missed it for anything. 

For every man of them, the big adventure has flung wide 
the door of opportunity. 

This generation will see the soldiers in the saddle in 
public and private life. Just watch. 

Some men did not find themselves until they reached the 
battlefields of France. Hundreds did not know what was 
in them until they were struggling in the maelstrom of war. 

176 



SOLDIER POETS 177 

Out of the ranks will come new writers, artists, sculptors, 
actors, statesmen, philosophers and preachers. 

They have been remade by the feel and the pain of the 
ordeal. They who lived through it and they only can hope to 
describe it so that others may see and feel, but only in a measure. 

An old army chaplain told me that one of the biggest 
surprises he had in the war was when the so-called "hard 
guy" of the regiment, the man they picked to tame men and 
horses, who staged all the boxing bouts and who did all the 
rough work, placed on the grave of a comrade a bouquet of 
wild flowers which he had picked with his own hands. 

"If anybody told me 'Spike' had a particle of sentiment 
in him before that," said the chaplain, "I would have told 
him he didn't know the man, but war has wrought its 
changes in our regimental 'rough neck,' as the boys called 
him, as it did on countless others." 

Many soldier poets were developed overseas. I came 
across samples of their work from time to time and reprint a 
few to give readers an idea how the muse inspired them in 
the ranks. Poems by soldiers were published regularly in the 
" Stars and Stripes," the official organ of the American 
Expeditionary Forces, which was so popular with officers 
and men that many called it their "Bible." The editors of 
the "Stars and Stripes" published a booklet of soldier poems 
which makes interesting reading and a splendid souvenir. 

For example, just scan this poem, entitled "Cambric 
and Cambrai," written by Bugler Hubert W. Kelley, 
Company D, th Railway Engineers : 

" 'Tis strange — it was not long ago 
I sat and watched my mother sew, 
And heard the drowsy hum and whirr 
Of wheel that flew in gleaming blur; 
And sometimes busy scissors snipped, 
As seams were sewn, or seams were ripped. 

"I often raised a dreamy look 

Above my open story book, 

And while she worked her agile hands, 

My mother told me of the lands 

Where cloths were made. I hear her say, 

'This cambric came from far Cambrai.' 



178 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"It seems as if 'twere yesterday 
She spoke of cambric and Cambrai — 
The city of the Frankish king, 
Where looms of magic weave and sing. 
That fair old town of northern France 
Was but one star in my romance. 

"The star was not so brilliant then, 
But when I see the ranks of men 
March past me to the front each day, 
I think of cambric and Cambrai; 
And every time a cannon booms, 
I think of Cambrai and her looms. 

" 'Tis strange — it was not long ago 
I sat and watched my mother sew, 
And heard her tell of far Cambrai, 
And now our guns are turned that way. 
It hurts me when a cannon booms, 
I think of Cambrai and her looms." 

Fancy an engineer writing that in a dugout at the battle 
front. Isn't that sentiment? Doesn't it express a tender- 
ness of thought which anybody would think foreign to a 
soldier in time of war? 

Here are a few other samples of the work of soldier poets : 

CHOW CALL 

"Kinder funny how a feller 

May be feelin' awful blue, 
Like the world has gone to thunder, 

Same as I have felt, an' you; 
When he hasn't had a letter 

Or is broke, an' tired, an' all, 
But a smile enwreaths his visage 

When he hears that old chow call. 

"In the mornin', when our bugler 

Wakes us with his darn first call, 
We get sore enough to eat him 

An' his horn, an' tune, an' all. 
When he blows for drill an' 'sembly, 

Seems to us he's mighty small; 
But we love him like a brother 

When he plays that old chow call. 

"Cease your singin', Sirens' voices; 

Pipes of Pan, cut out your stall; 
For allurement, you aren't in it 

When our bugler plays chow call. 
Rather than be Paderewski, 

Or Chopin, who looms up tall, 
Would I be the unknown genius 

Who composed that old chow call. 



SOLDIER POETS 179 



"Maybe you ain't got a bugle, 

Use a Jap'nese gong high-ball. 
Well, you'll find out what you're missin', 

When you hear that old chow call. 
I should like to sing its praises, 

Till from sheer fatigue I'd fall — 
But just now I can't be bothered. 

For I hear that old chow call." 

GUY H. TALOR, 165th Aero Squadron. 

SONNET— 1918 
"What is this yellow swarm so swiftly sprung 

From out a thousand towns that yesterday 

Did teem with peaceful work and love and play? 
What countless guns this quiet folk have slung! 
The tyrant threatened Freedom, and they rose 

Against his host long skilled and bred in war. 
His host — none such the world had seen before — 
Melted and bent, and fled before their blows. 
And now they're turning back, and glad it's done, 
Back to the thousand cities' peaceful joys. 
Look at these warriors who have tamed the Hun, 
O seem they fierce; vent they much bloody noise? 
Ah no! For mothers, sweethearts every one 

Doth sigh; they're only smiling, homesick boys." 

MILES J. BRENER, 1st Lt. M. C. 

TO M. L. D. 
"I've been eaten up by cooties, 

And I've bathed in Flanders mud. 
I've ducked old Jerry's minnies 

And awaited many a dud. 

"I've had my joy and sorrow 

And pleasures tres beaucoup. 
But I'm waiting for the morrow 

When I'll be back with you. 

"That day has long been coming, 

But now will soon be here. 
The thought has kept me humming 

Songs of Love to you, my dear." 

WILLIAM F. GERMAIN, S. S. D. 

UP WITH THE RATIONS 

"Hovering of darkness and coverlids of dawn — 
Up with the rations, where the boys have gone! 
Creaking and crying the limbers rattle on — 
Up with the rations — but the roads are gone! • 

" 'Which is the road to take ? 
How many miles to make?' 
Never a nerve to shake — 
On with the game! 



180 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 



"Shriek of the whining shell, 
Bursting with flares of hell, 
Lighting the road so well, 
Thank it the same! 

"Crooning of airplane, hovering o'er you — 
(Mind you, the Infantry made it before you!) 

" 'Come, build this bridge again — 
Cut through this field of grain — 
Work and forget the rain — 
Hustle those men! 

" 'Here, take this overcoat; 
Cover that wounded bloke, 
Pull it around his throat — 
He's kickin' in!' 

"How the mud oozes and clings to the ration cart, 
*£ Clinches the rims of the tires till they hold! 
How the mules fret at the load when the wagons start 
Stretching the traces from lashes that scold! 

" 'God! What a fierce barrage! 
There goes a team at large! 
Where is that transport sarge? 
Finding a hole?' 

"Never a chance to run for cover, 
This is the way he puts them over — 

" ' Bring on that set o' spares! 
Pull off them murdered mares! 
Hitch on two other pairs 
And fix that pole! 

" 'Now — one at a crack as I give you the sign, 

Dig into her ribs and shoot for the line! 

Or find yourself drivin' a limber in hell 

And ball up my dope on the drops of the shell!' 

"Close enough now for a shot from a gunner's nest 
To warn you that Fritz is sniping out there — 

Close enough now for a whisper to give you rest 
To last you a while with never a care! 



" "Sir! Your rations are delivered!' 



"Oh, it's welcome to the dawn, lad, 

When the night is long, 
For here's an empty cart, lad, 

That sings a lively song! 

"Who would be part of the transport on a far flung battle line, 
With never a thrill of battle, with never a lip to whine? 



SOLDIER POETS 181 



"But, oh, there's a song in a limber 

That stirs to the blood, my lad, 
And swinging along with the rations 

Is never one-half so bad, 
For the glare and the gleam of a starshell 

And a teamster's gay 'gid-dap' 
Hold enough for the life of a soldier, 

For the blood of a nervy chap. 
And a lad lives close to his God, my lad, 

And, lo, his heart is true, 
For it takes a person of parts, my lad, 

To get the rations through!" 

J. PALMER CUMMING, R. S. S., 305th Inf. 



Shortly after Christmas the doughboys began to get 
postcards from admirers at home with the following verse 
printed in big, burning letters on the back: 

A WORD OF GREETING AND WARNING 

"Be nice to the daughters of England, 

And polite to the belles of France. 
Be good to the orphans of Belgium. 

Give the signoritas a glance. 
And just remember you're out on business 

And whenever your sympathies stray. 
Keep your heart tied up in your kitbag 

For the girls of the U. S. A." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

The "Sixth" Sense 

BThe Chaplains of the American Expeditionary 
Forces made good. 
They were two-fisted, practical, courageous, 
everyday men. The doughboys nicknamed them 
"Sky Pilots" and "Holy Joes." 

The less outward sancity they wore and the more com- 
monplace their methods, the better the soldiers liked them. 

I met padres, many of them for whom the doughboys 
would have sacrificed their lives — earnest, liberal, mild- 
mannered men of every denomination. 

Welfare workers who, actuated by personal impulse or 
ambition, tried to serve religion with sweet chocolate or who 
attempted to exploit pet spiritual hobbies received a cold 
shoulder from the rank and file of the American troops 
overseas. 

The soldiers preferred to accept religion from the army 
chaplains, who did not require any help from amateur 
evangelists. 

It was astonishing what influence the army chaplains, 
and especially those of the Yankee Division, had on the 
men of the organizations to which they were attached. 
Officers and privates idolized them. They could do more 
with a glance or a few off-hand words than some men could 
if they preached all day. The soldiers had confidence in 
them. 

The game of war changed chaplains as it did the soldiers. 
I recall a young divine of exalted manner who came from a 
fashionable parish and who spoke with a broad English 
accent, always with hands folded, and who was awfully shell- 

182 



THE "SIXTH" SENSE 133 

shy for a spell. The men guyed him behind his back and 
it looked as if he were going to be a failure, but war trans- 
formed "Morti," as the soldiers christened him, and it was 
not long before they had taken him into their hearts as "a 
regular guy." That young dandy turned out to be one of 
the bravest men in the outfit and nobody was more surprised 
than himself. He told us so. 

I knew chaplains who did not hesitate to say "hell" and 
"damn," after they had been in the field for a time, and the 
soldiers liked it. 

The religious element is different in the army than it is in 
civil life and it was radically different in time of war than 
it was in time of peace. 

Judging from my observations along the front, religion 
became a sort of sixth sense, in war. It seemed to become 
as necessary as sleep, and food and rifle. It seemed as 
natural and necessary as air to the great majority. It was 
interesting to see how religion got under the skin of many of 
the calloused and the unbelievers in the face of danger and 
death. 

Men just felt it. A rough-neck sergeant expressed it 
pretty accurately when he bawled : 

"Nobody has to spout religion to me when it's time to go 
over the top. Prayer is second nature and you don't have 
to get down on your knees. All that you learned about 
religion in childhood comes rushing back to you and it gets 
you good." 

The army chaplains sized it up about that way. They 
used effective logic. They did worlds of good. 

Chaplain Lyman Rollins of Marblehead, attached to the 
101st Infantry, injected a sort of Billy Sunday pep into his 
talks. He talked from the shoulder in everyday slang and 
trench lingo and always made a hit. On a certain Sabbath 
Chaplain Rollins made his soldier congregation gasp. 

Without a word of preface or warning, he thundered 
forth a string of oaths and obscene phrases, every one that 
he had ever heard, and suddenly stopped. 



184 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

The men thought he had gone crazy. Then before they 
had recovered from their astonishment Chaplain Rollins 
shouted: 

"How did it sound, fellows? Pretty bad coming from a 
minister, didn't it? Well, let me tell you it doesn't sound 
any worse for me to utter these vile words than it does for 
you. All I hear from Monday to Monday is profanity. 
Cut it out, fellows." 

He told me he did not hear a profane word for days after 
that blast. Chaplain Rollins was a live wire, and yet he 
had literally to fight his way across. He applied to go with 
the regiment, but his application was turned down and he 
had to hurry to Washington and pull no end of wires. The 
Rev. M. J. O'Connor of Roxbury, then ranking chaplain of 
the 101st Infantry and later senior divisional chaplain, 
helped make a berth for Chaplain Rollins and they were in- 
separable. 

Father O'Connor directed all the chaplains in the Yankee 
Division. He was such a big, forcible, good-natured padre, 
an athlete and football player in college, that the soldiers 
looked up to him. Chaplain O'Connor was gassed, but 
recovered. 

I don't think there was a chaplain in the American over- 
seas army who roughed it more with the men in the front 
lines and who came nearer sharing their hardships and risks 
than the Rev. Osias J. Boucher, a Knights of Columbus 
chaplain from Fall River. Father Boucher said at the 
home-coming banquet given to Colonel Logan by the repre- 
sentative citizens of Boston at the Copley-Plaza that he was 
probably the "toughest looking chaplain in France," be- 
cause he wore a regulation doughboy's uniform and never 
had time to "slick up." 

But Chaplain Boucher did not mention the countless 
acts of bravery he performed under machine gun and shell 
fire to adminster to dying soldiers. He, like Chaplain Rol- 
lins, won a Croix de Guerre. 



THE "SIXTH" SENSE 185 

The first chaplains in the American Expeditionary 
Forces decorated by the French were the Rev. John B. 
DesValles of New Bedford and the late Rev. Walter S. 
Danker of Worcester, who was killed by a shell. 

Father DesValles at the Apremont Woods and Seicheprey 
fights rescued several wounded soldiers who were trapped 
in No Man's Land. He was as handsome as a motion picture 
hero. He was curate of St. John the Baptist Church. He 
was assigned to the army by the Knights of Columbus. He 
later won a Distinguished Service Cross. 

After the Apremont Woods scrap he told me how he felt 
the first time he was under fire. He said : 

"First you recoil and get scared blue and then you forget 
all about yourself when you see men dead and wounded 
around you. It was hell. That's the only name for it 
while the shelling was at its height. There was a time in 
my life when I feared to stay alone in a room during a thun- 
der storm. 

"If anybody told me then I could face and survive what 
I went through today I wouldn't have believed him. The 
noise was maddening. Shells dropped everywhere, hurling 
earth and stones and shrapnel. There were flashes and 
thunderous reports. 

"All the glory goes to the men in the ranks. That's 
where you find the real heroes. Those youngsters are 
wonders. Boys of eighteen fought like the warriors we read 
about. They didn't seem to have a thought of fear. They 
just pitched in. There isn't a power in the world that can 
conquer such spirit. It was great. The fortitude of those 
striplings was the marvel of it all. 

"I was at a dressing station when Lieutenant John Galvin 
of Greenfield came there for treatment. He had been fight- 
ing gallantly all day. He told the surgeon there was some- 
thing the matter with his eardrums. He said he couldn't 
hear and that it interfered with his work. 

"The doctor told him to bathe his ears in hot water. 
Lieutenant Galvin smiled and said, 'Hot water? Can't 



186 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

even get cold.' I shook hands with him and he hadn't gone 
many steps before a shell killed him. Poor lad. His men 
worshipped him. Galvin was a regular fellow and a fine 
soldier. 

"As the battle progressed I had to do a little first aid 
work of my own, administering to the wounded and anoint- 
ing the dying. There were no denominational lines out 
there. The spiritual feeling was strong. Youngsters 
begged me to pray for them. 

"Word reached me that Private Charlie Pike of Peabody 
was wounded and unable to move in No Man's Land. I 
went out and poked around, but couldn't locate him. I 
came back for more definite directions and found him the 
second time and hauled him in. Most ordinary thing in the 
world, but some of them thought it good enough for a medal. 
Anybody would have done it. 

"I carried a thermos bottle filled with hot tea and I gave 
them a drink from it the first thing and that spruced them 
up, and then, as they started off in stretchers, I poked a 
cigarette between their lips, and the cigarette always 
brought such an expression of relief and satisfaction. 

"Then I would whisper a prayer and a word of cheer in 
their ear and send them down the trail to the hospital. The 
first thing that many of the wounded youngsters asked was 
how soon they could return to the line. The flashes and 
rockets reminded you of the Fourth of July. In spite of the 
dampness trees caught fire." 

The bravery of army chaplains was one of the features of 
the opening fights at Apremont Woods and Seicheprey. 
The Rev. William J. Farrell of West Newton administered 
to the dying during a rain of shells and carried ammunition 
to a battery by hand. When four men were killed and 
seven wounded, putting the guns out of action, Chaplain 
Farrell operated a gun himself until wounded by shrapnel. 

Chaplain Farrell carried Private Myron Dickinson of 
Bridgeport, Ct., a nineteen-year-old artilleryman, on his 
back to a dressing station. He was decorated for bravery. 



THE "SIXTH" SENSE 187 

The commanding officer told Chaplain Farrell that he was 
too good a fighter for a clergyman and offered him a com- 
mission, but Father Farrell thought he'd better continue the 
role of sky pilot. The men called him "The Fighting Par- 
son." 

The Rev. George S. L. Connor of Holyoke did splendid 
work with the Yankee Division and later became senior 
corps chaplain with the American Army of Occupation. 
Chaplain Connor was fortunate enough to be transferred 
back in time to come home with the Yankee Division. He 
was attached to the 101st Infantry when mustered out. He 
officiated at the funeral of Chaplain Davitt of Holyoke, his 
classmate and chum, who was the last chaplain and probably 
the last American officer killed in the war. 

The Rev. John J. Mitty of New York was chaplain of 
the 102d Infantry. He was thrown from his horse in the 
big Boston parade and suffered a broken ankle. His mount 
was frightened by noise and confetti in passing the Hotel 
Lenox. 

On Easter Sunday morning, 1918, as the Yankee Division 
artillery was moving from the Chemin-des-Dames sector into 
the Toul sector, I met Chaplain Murray W. Dewart of the 
101st Field Artillery. Chaplain Dewart served with the 
First Massachusetts Regiment of Artillery on the Mexican 
border and staged all the regimental tournaments and box- 
ing bouts. He said that day: 

"About this time I would be mounting my pulpit at 
home. I couldn't help thinking just now, as we passed that 
little church down there, of the contrast. Here we are up 
against the real thing at last; the thing we trained for on the 
border — mud and rain and cold and fag, and cannonading 
in the distance, entering a sector on the great Western front 
at an hour when churches at home are thronged with wor- 
shippers in their Easter finery. I can fancy myself part of 
the scene. I can see the faces and the vested choir and 
fancy the fragrance of incense and flowers. Some dif- 
ference." 



188 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

The chaplains of the Yankee Division, each of whom was 
a hustler and deserving of special mention, were: 

Division Headquarters — Rev. M. J. O'Connor, ranking 
chaplain of the division; Rev. Father Tucker, Rabbi Israel 
Bettan of South Carolina and Acting Rabbi Benjamin 
Riseman of Boston. 

101st Infantry — Rev. George S. L. Connor, Rev. Lyman 
Rollins, Rev. John J. Mitty. 

102d Infantry — Rev. James P. Sherry, Rev. Burnham 
Dell and Rev. Thomas G. Speers. 

103d Infantry— Rev. Michael Nivard (K. of C), Rev. 
Harrison R. Anderson. 

104th Infantry— Rev. John B. DesValles (K. of C), 
Rev. Allen Evans, Jr., and Rev. Charles K. Imbrie. 

101st Field Artillery — Rev. Murray W. Dewart. 

102d Field Artillery— Rev. Markham W. Stackpole. 

103d Field Artillery— Rev. William J. Farrell (K. of C). 

101st Engineers — Rev. H. Boyd Edwards, formerly 
chaplain of the Eighth Massachusetts Infantry. 

101st Ammunition Train — Rev. Chauncey Adams. 

101st Machine Gun Battalion — Rev. Earl Taggart. 

102d Machine Gun Battalion — Rev. Arthur J. Le Veer. 

103d Machine Gun Battalion — Rev. Robert Campbell. 

101st Field Signal Battalion — Rev. Malcolm E. Peabody 
and Rev. John Creighton. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Salvation Doughnuts 

BNo Series of anecdotes or history of the Yankee 
Division would be complete unless it included a 
chapter telling about the Salvation Army activities 
with the New England troops at the front, and 
the same applies to every other American combat division. 

Observe that I say "at the front." I wish to place all 
possible emphasis on that point, because that was where the 
Salvation Army did the major share of its war welfare work 
—AT THE FRONT— and did it so well that every officer 
and enlisted man in the American Expeditionary Forces be- 
came a friend and booster of the organization. 

I heard generals praise the Salvation Army just as fer- 
vently as did the doughboys. When you hear such a unani- 
mous and emphatic verdict it must be so. The entire over- 
seas army praised the Salvation Army for its welfare work, 
praised it in a chorus so mighty that its echoes were carried 
to this side of the ocean and those echoes will go ringing 
down through the years to come. 

The Salvation Army made good. Its success as an army 
auxiliary in the battle zone was one of the outstanding 
features of the closing year of the world war. 

The Salvation Army saw a need and met it. It saw and 
took advantage of a big opportunity, not to help itself but 
to help others. Those at the head of the organization 
tackled the job in the right way. 

Their resources were limited, but what they had they 
applied wisely. They concentrated in the obscure regions 
where men were fighting and fagged and where they needed 
little comforts far more than did the fellows back in the 

S. o. s. 

189 



190 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Sincerity, benevolence, indefatigable zeal, honest effort, 
warm-blooded heart interest in the rank and file of American 
soldiers and bales and bales of patriotic fervor enabled the 
Salvation Army welfare workers to bridge gaps and to sur- 
mount obstacles that were discouraging at times. Equipped 
with a greater stock of these motives and attributes than 
material things, the Salvation Army won out. 

It couldn't help it. It was the old story of charity reap- 
ing its own reward. The Salvation Army pitched in with 
sleeves furled and administered to the Yanks in advanced 
areas. 

It lacked transportation and funds and a lot of other 
things, but what it had the soldiers were welcome to. Right 
there you find the secret of Salvation Army success on the 
battlefields of France. It gave what little it had to the 
doughboys with a smile and with a generous simplicity that 
made a hit with the troops. They liked the spirit better 
than the steaming coffee and the doughnuts, which is saying 
a lot, because man ! how they gobbled those doughnuts ! 

You don't have to depend upon my word for it. Just 
ask any soldier you meet. They are the best witnesses. 
When the tide of olive drab began to flow homeward after 
the fighting ended, the Salvation Army again showed its 
business acumen and efficiency by centering at the embarka- 
tion ports and doing its utmost at Brest and Bordeaux and 
other ports where effort was needed. 

The Salvation Army had no publicity bureau over there 
to boast about its work in the field. It just got busy in an 
humble way because it felt the men needed such effort and 
attention as its field secretaries could give. 

But like the good will of the troops, the Salvation Army 
reaped publicity automatically. It won publicity from the 
goodness of heart of the small but earnest band of workers 
in the field. American war correspondents saw that the 
Salvation Army operatives were delivering, and they flashed 
cables to let the people in the United States know about it. 



SALVATION DOUGHNUTS 191 

The doughboys early began to contribute the most 
effective publicity of all, writing home about what the 
Salvation Army was doing for them and urging relatives 
"not to let a tambourine pass without dropping something 
in." 

Pretty good slogan that. In my mail the other day I 
received a letter from my friend John F. Mahony, local 
publicity expert, who asked me if I would speak in the cam- 
paign for the Salvation Army Home Service Fund, 

Charles S. Whitman was national chairman, former 
Governor Samuel W. McCall, State chairman, Edwin T. 
Coffin, New England Campaign Director, and Mr. Mahony, 
director of publicity. This paragraph appeared in Mr. 
Mahony's letter to me: 

"Everybody at New England Campaign Headquarters 
of the Salvation Army Home Service Fund, from Colonel 
Gifford down to the lowest officer, gives you credit for being 
the correspondent who 'found' the Salvation Army abroad." 

A mighty fine tribute. The doughboys "found" the 
Salvation Army before I did, though now that Jack has let 
the cat out of the bag, I might confess that I did happen to 
be the first to cable a story to the United States about Sal- 
vation Army welfare activities at the front and I considered 
it an honor and a duty. 

There was news value in the report that I cabled to the 
International News Service which I knew would be of in- 
terest to its hundreds of newspaper clients throughout the 
United States and Canada. Six American girls frying and 
serving doughnuts to doughboys with helmets on and gas 
masks strapped at "alert" in a French village that was being 
shelled and gassed was so good a story, in my opinion, that 
I used "P. Q. urgent," a rate which meant that it traveled at 
the greatest possible speed and cost 75 cents a word. 

If the Salvation Army hadn't done something really 
worth while in the Toul sector, I wouldn't have used 
such an expensive cable service to telegraph that story to 
America. 



192 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

I had the dual pleasure of putting across a news story 
and, incidentally, helping a worthy cause. It was a case 
of linking business and sentiment. 

When the Yankee Division, after a long tour of duty 
in the front line trenches in Chemin-des-Dames, relieved 
the First Division in the Toul sector and took up a divisional 
front, on Easter Sunday, 1918, 1 visited the battered village 
of Anceville, not far from the divisional headquarters at 
Boucq. 

On the way there the army chauffeur who drove the 
army car assigned to me talked a great deal about the 
Salvation Army. He said the "gang" were loud in their 
praises and he wanted me to take a peep into a tumbledown 
factory, where a Salvation Army canteen had been set up. 

It was a weird place. The roof of the old stone building 
had been almost entirely ripped away by shells and buildings 
all about had been demolished. Enemy shells had partly 
destroyed the ancient chapel close by, and, in a house, a 
few centuries old, the Salvation Army corps lived with a 
couple almost as ancient-appearing as their domicile. 

It was raining and had been for days. Mud was ankle 
deep. The temperature was biting. Inside the Salvation 
canteen everything looked black when you first entered, 
but after your eyes had become accustomed to the light of 
a few candles and an old barn lantern, you saw that dough- 
boys were seated around boxes and boards that served as 
tables and they were drinking hot coffee and devouring 
doughnuts and egg sandwiches in awful gulps. 

You noticed that an old strip of canvas had been used 
to substitute for the missing roof, that it leaked, that day- 
light showed through several shellholes in the walls, that 
there was an improvised counter for chocolate, tobacco, 
cigarettes and matches at the back of the apartment, and 
that in the rear, entered through a portiere of damp, smelly 
burlap, was a smaller room that served as kitchen. 

"Ma" and "Pa" Burdick were there and four Salvation 
Army girl ensigns, all busy as beavers catering to that 



SALVATION DOUGHNUTS 193 

hungry line of doughboys, scores of whom waited in the 
rain for their turn. 

The ensigns wore bungalow aprons over their uniforms. 
They were kneading dough and frying doughnuts. Their 
arms were almost blistered from the heat and sputtering 
grease. Huge vats of coffee sang on the stove. Dough- 
boys helped serve and doughboys carried water and split 
wood and did all the chores without being asked, they 
appreciated so much what was being done for them. 

In this reciprocal spirit the doughboys volunteered their 
services to do the heavy labor whenever they had spare 
time. Woe to the man who insulted or offended the Sal- 
vation Army lassies. The soldiers worshipped them. They 
used to say they reminded them of their sisters and that the 
old battered canteen, in spite of its dampness and ugliness, 
held a suggestion of home "with girls, aprons and smiles 
around." 

On my first visit to the Salvation Army canteen at 
Anceville I took the names of the staff working there, 
figuring that it would make an interesting mail story. I 
found there, with Mr. and Mrs. Burdick, the Misses Gladys 
and Irene Mclntyre, sisters from Mt. Vernon, N. Y., Miss 
Stella Young, Chelsea, Mass., and Miss Myrtle Turkington 
of South Manchester, Conn. Later they were joined by 
Miss Gertrude Symonds and Miss Violet Williams of 
Racine, Wis. 

Before I had time to bother with a mail story the Ger- 
mans attacked Yankee Division units at Seicheprey and 
prefaced the raid with a violent artillery bombardment. 
Roads leading to Anceville were screened by camouflaged 
fencing, and there were frequent signs announcing in 
French that you were in sight of the enemy. Mrs. Burdick, 
a woman in her sixties, and the six girl ensigns were nearer 
the battle line than any of their sex on the American front, 
at the time. 

When the enemy guns were turned on Anceville it 
became a bang-up human interest story. Buildings crum- 



194 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

bled all around where the Salvation Army girls lived and 
toiled. Soldiers who had patronized the canteen were killed 
in the streets. Couriers were killed by shells on "Dead 
Man's Curve." A brigade commander was compelled to 
move his headquarters. 

Everything was confusion when I reached there. Mus- 
tard gas shells were being hurled. Stray shells had come 
over for days, but those were expected on every front, and 
Gothas fluttered over at night and dropped bombs. Affairs 
finally became so hot that the town major was forced to 
order the Salvation Army girls to evacuate and he did it 
reluctantly. 

Prior to that, Mr. and Mrs. Burdick had been trans- 
ferred to another division. Here is the account given to me 
by Irene Mclntyre in the presence of the others: 

"The Germans had been conducting so many air raids 
that we were forced to sleep in a stuffy dugout every night 
for more than a week. Lucky they didn't begin Easter 
week because we had the canteen working night and day 
then. We never had fixed hours. If the men came out of 
the trenches at 3 o'clock in the morning we made egg sand- 
wiches and coffee and doughnuts for them. 

"Well, Friday was really the first quiet night and we 
girls decided to go to our own beds for a good rest, because 
you can't sleep comfortably in a dugout without ventila- 
tion. They kept a couple of pigs and a cow and chickens 
down stairs in the house where we were billeted. 

"We were all awakened at 4 o'clock Saturday morning 
by the clanging of the church bell. One of the first shells 
struck under the tower clock. They were sounding the gas 
alarm. We girls all put on our gas masks as we had been 
taught. We often had them strapped at alert while cooking 
in the kitchen and wore our tin hats, too. 

"A shell came screaming and landed just back of our 
house and another struck a little to the right and they kept 
on coming. Before we had time to adjust our masks we 
all got a whiff of the horrible stuff. We looked awfully 



SALVATION DOUGHNUTS 195 

funny squatted on those high French beds with those ugly 
things on. We had the masks on so long that they became 
burdensome and stifling and we wondered why the 'all clear' 
hadn't sounded as it usually did. 

"I agreed to take off my mask long enough to get my 
flashlight to investigate. I no sooner took it off than I got 
another sniff and I clapped it on again quickly. The shells 
continued to roar. We all dressed hurriedly and at daylight 
ambulances came around 'Dead Man's Curve' bearing the 
wounded. 

"We prepared to get things ready for them in the canteen 
when the town major came and said conditions were so bad 
that we must leave the town at once. We pleaded and he 
said he was awfully sorry, but that it was a military order 
for our own safety. 

"We escaped at noon on a buckboard driven by a ser- 
geant, and the ride was exciting. Shells were breaking on 
all sides. The soldiers hated to see us go. The old village 
looked ghastly. Fred Stillwell of Chicago showed grit in 
rescuing our baggage. They told us we must rest in this 
village for a spell, but we feel like fish out of water, don't 
we girls?" 

Miss Gladys Mclntyre, the older sister, and Miss Corie 
Van Norden of the Van Norden family of New York were 
the first to take up canteen work at the front in December, 
1917, and they placed wild violets on the graves of the first 
American soldiers killed in action in France. The Misses 
Mclntyre were the only members of their sex cited by the 
Yankee Division and the only ones to ride in the big Boston 
parade. 

Mrs. Burdick and her husband came from Houston, 
Texas, and they were loved by the soldiers. "Ma" Burdick 
(that's what the doughboys called her) said to me one day: 

"This isn't work, it's a labor of love. If I attempted to 
do half as much at home I'd be ill or dead, but over here 
you don't think of time or effort. I've got a grown up family 
and my husband and I are awfully fond of our home, but 



196 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

I wouldn't swap jobs this minute with the finest lady in 
Europe. 

"The soldiers are so nice and interesting and so grateful 
for the least little thing. I hate to confess that I had to 
come to France to discover what beautiful young men we 
had in America. Their mothers ought to be proud of them. 
They come in and ask your advice and your blessing and 
they say good-bye before they enter the front line and some 
of them don't come back. Nothing is too good for them." 

The pace set by the ensigns at Anceville was kept up by 
the Salvation Army at all fronts and with all divisions 
throughout the American operations and the credit it got 
in consequence was deserved. 

The first girl welfare workers to reach the Rhine were 
Salvation Army Ensigns Miss Edie Hodges of Richmond, 
Virginia, recruited from Chicago, and Miss Florence Tur- 
kington of South Manchester, Ct., sister of Miss Myrtle 
Turkington, one of the heroines of Anceville. They 
traveled and slept on a motor truck, and Fred Anderson of 
Tacoma, Wash., a field secretary, was with them. 

The first Salvation Army canteen operated in Germany 
was established in Coblenz by Miss Margaret Shel of 
Chicago and Miss Bertha Lowe of Newark, N. J. Drunken 
Germans tried to batter down the door of their bedroom 
the first night. They reported the case to the military 
authorities. Doughboys wanted to beat up the offenders. 

But the Salvation Army ensigns simply changed their 
lodgings, bought a revolver between them and kept on 
toiling for the Yanks. I never met a Salvation Army war 
worker overseas, man or woman, who was a poser, or an 
idler, or a misfit. I never met one who was patronizing or 
narrow or unsympathetic. 

So now you have the story, Jack, of how I "found" the 
Salvation Army in France. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Overseas Cemeteries 

BIn the censors' office at Neuf chateau, while affairs 
were active in the Toul sector, I met Walter A. 
Dragon of Lowell. He was acting as field clerk and 
had a chance to meet and size up all the war corre- 
spondents for newspapers and magazines. 

This was interesting for Walter because he was a re- 
porter on the staff of the Lowell Courier- Citizen before 
entering the army. He used to write sports. Walter was 
twenty-four. He was graduated from the Lowell High 
School in 1912. He was popular with all the correspondents. 
He had a keen "nose for news," as the saying goes in news- 
paper parlance, and used to give us valuable tips. 

"It was a big relief when the American hello girls took 
charge of the army exchanges," said Walter one day. 
"Their familiar 'What number please?' and The linens 
busy' sure did sound good. They tuned up the service 
right off the bat." 

Walter was of French descent and spoke French fluently, 
an accomplishment which with his knowledge of shorthand 
made him mighty valuable in the censors' department. 

During the fighting in the Spring of 1918 in the Toul 
sector I met Stanley W. Prentosil of No. 81 Irving Street, 
West Springfield. Stanley had worked in the Boston and 
New York offices of the Associated Press and covered the 
American front until he entered the army. We were sorry 
when he returned to the States after a few active months 
substituting for the regular correspondent. Prentosil made 
good as a war correspondent. 

In Bar-le-Duc I met Captain Harold Clarke, better 
known as "Tad," who covered the Bay State militia for the 

197 



198 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Boston Herald on the Mexican border and who went to 
Plattsburg and won a captain's commission when the United 
States was drawn into the war. "Tad " captained an in- 
fantry company in the Seventy-sixth Division at Camp 
Devens, and was doing intelligence work when I ran across 
him in France. 

In Bar-le-Duc also I met Captain Herbert E. Fleischner, 
son of Otto Fleischner, assistant librarian of the Boston 
Public Library. Herbert had been secretary for the late 
Postmaster Murray and was attached to Motor Supply 
Train Number Twenty-six. He trained at Camp Johnston. 

I met Humphrey Sullivan, formerly a reporter on the 
Boston Herald and later on the Boston American, in Paris 
and again in Luxembourg. He was connected with a tele- 
phone company in Texas before winning a commission. He 
was in the Signal Corps. 

In Coblenz I met Lieutenant Thomas F. Moriarty of 
No. 492 Liberty Street, Springfield, acting as billeting 
officer and attached to the Eighty-fifth Division. Tom was 
one of the star tackles at Fordham. He played with Jim 
Thorpe and later acted as coach. 

His college chum, Captain Harry Costello of Meriden, 
Ct., Georgetown, '13, one of the great quarterbacks of his 
time, trained at Fort Sheridan, was assigned to the 339th 
Infantry in the Eighty-fifth Division and went with 
that regiment to Archangel, fighting revolutionists on the 
bleak Russian steppes. 

In Brest when President Wilson sailed for home after his 
first attendance at the Peace Conference I met "Billy" 
Scharton's former law partner, Joseph H. McNally, a cap- 
tain of artillery, and huskier than I had ever seen him. In 
Brest, too, I met Captain Edward O. Rushford of Salem, 
formerly of the 101st Artillery. He was directing a monster 
base hospital as chief urologist. His organization was 
taken as an army model. Major Rushford recently married 
a French society girl in Paris. 



OVERSEAS CEMETERIES 199 

I found H. L. Stuart, formerly of the Boston Herald repor- 
torial staff, who covered the first big Lawrence strike with us, 
acting as British censor at the Bourse in Paris and wearing 
the uniform of a British lieutenant. He had been liaison 
officer in the British army in Italy, where he was wounded. 

On the British front I met Bud Fisher, the creator of 
Mutt and Jeff, a captain in the British army and sporting 
a monocle. 

Captain Charles F. Bowen, newspaperman of Man- 
chester, N. H., was doing valuable work as assistant in G-l 
in the Thirty-second Division beyond the Rhine. 

The newspapermen of Boston and New England rallied 
to the colors in force. You came across them everywhere 
and from every branch of the newspaper service — editorial, 
composing, mailing, stereoptying rooms and advertising de- 
partments. They added lustre to Newspaper Row. 

One of the first journalist heroes to die was Sergeant 
Homer Wheaton of Worcester. His military career 
would have made a novel. He served on the Mexican bor- 
der with the Worcester company of the Ninth Regiment 
and was rejected for service overseas because he was run 
down from overwork. 

But Homer was too much of a patriot to stay at home. 
He went through a vigorous course of training and diet and 
built himself up so well that he was accepted. In a dugout 
on the Toul sector while shifting grenades somebody acci- 
dentally dropped one and the pin sprang open. Wheaton 
saw that within a few seconds all would be menaced. There 
was not enough time to carry it out, so he caught it up and 
sacrificed himself for the others. It killed him, but his body 
screened the other men in the dugout from the fragments. 
The French sent Homer's folks a Croix de Guerre. 

Lieutenant Paul Hines, a Boston reporter, went into No 
Man's Land under terrific shell fire and saved a wounded 
officer. He was decorated with the Croix de Guerre and 
Distinguished Service Cross. I have told you of the gal- 
lantry of Lieutenant Horton Edmunds, another Boston re- 



200 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

porter, as described by Brigadier-General Cole. "Dutch" 
Mahan, a Boston reporter, who served throughout the war 
as a private, was as plucky as they came and he wrote 
brilliantly of his experiences. Lieutenant Dustin Lucier, 
financial editor on a Boston newspaper, attached to another 
division, figured in the cable dispatches one day because of 
his gallantry in capturing a village with a small force of men 
and in the face of stubborn resistance. Whenever you 
heard of a Boston newspaperman over there he was 
doing something worth while. 

John J. Donovan, a well-known Boston lawyer and mem- 
ber of the reportorial staff of the Boston Globe, acting as 
field secretary for the Knights of Columbus, was the first 
war welfare worker to reach the Rhine with a truckload of 
gumdrops, soap and "smokes." 

The doughboys in the Army of Occupation called him 
"Santa Claus Jack," because he managed to land the first 
load of Christmas supplies into Germany in spite of muddy 
and congested roads. Jack beat the Salvation Army by a 
week and the Y. M. C. A. by ten days. He later was pro- 
moted director of K. C. activities in the occupied territory. 

Secretary Edward Ryan of No. 209 Broad Street, Provi- 
dence, R. I., of the Knights of Columbus field staff, was with 
Jack Donovan in Luxembourg. A piece of shrapnel grazed 
him Oct. 12, ripping his breeches, and he refused to have the 
rent sewn, keeping them as a souvenir. He had a narrow 
escape. 

In an out-of-the-way French village I came across Ser- 
geant Charles V. Russell of Winthrop, formerly an under- 
taker in Dorchester and then a member of the 101st Supply 
Train of the Yankee Division. He told me that he had just 
received a letter announcing the death in an automobile 
accident of my close friend, William Barter, who served on 
the border in the machine gun company of the Fifth Regi- 
ment. 

That is how you picked up morsels of home news and 
met friends. Sergeant Russell was one of a party detailed to 



OVERSEAS CEMETERIES 201 

search for missing dead of the Yankee Division and to locate 
graves in the battle area. They had been doing this grim 
work since soon after the armistice. 

"We have had many strange and sad experiences," said 
Russell. "I was selected because I was an undertaker. 
Only today I buried a poor fellow whose legs and head were 
gone. There wasn't much left but bones. It was impossible 
to identify him. Rats and birds had been doing their work. 
There are many such cases. 

"Some were blown to atoms. Parts were found in trees. 
I fancy sections of several bodies have been buried as one. 
It will be impossible ever to reclaim those severely mutilated, 
unless where identification tags served. Here again there 
may be confusion. Some doughboys had a foolish habit of 
swapping tags. Such a trick is apt to play havoc with the 
records. When it comes time to send the bodies home, it is 
going to be a big and difficult task." 

The War Department issued a general order, dated 
March 14, 1918, which reads: 

"Remains of all officers, enlisted men and civilian employees 
of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps who shall have died or who 
may hereafter die in France shall be buried in France until the end 
of the war, when the remains shall be brought back to the United 
States for final interment. 

"Deaths at sea — Remains of all officers, enlisted men and 
civilian employees of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps who die 
on board a ship en route to or from the United States shall be em- 
balmed and returned to the United States on board ship on which 
the death occurred." 

Owing to the numerous deaths due to Spanish "flu" 
while the transportation of troops was at its height, it was 
impossible to follow out this order; hence burials were con- 
ducted at sea. According to later plans the Government 
is to establish a National Cemetery in France. 

Relatives find comfort in having the remains of loved 
ones in cemeteries convenient to visit. If it were not for 
this it might be wiser in the majority of cases to let the Ameri- 



202 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

can soldiers sleep where they lie in the picturesque valleys 
and on the hillsides on the edges of the battle zones of 
France. 

In no country in the world could be found more beautiful 
and peaceful resting places, with poppies bathing the 
meadows a deep crimson in Summer, with a weather-beaten 
church close by, the chimes in the tower of which rang 
daily benedictions, with shepherds and their flocks on adja- 
cent hills and with sympathetic French women and children 
eager to keep the Americans' graves fresh and green. The 
French peasants early asked the military authorities for 
permission to adopt graves which they pledged to care for, 
and they have carried out the benevolent work with a faith- 
fulness which shows their gratitude for the sacrifices made by 
their American allies. 

True, it seems awfully far away, but some of the soldiers' 
cemeteries over there are ideally located. The most 
striking are the graves of aviators, each with a cross made 
from the propeller of an aeroplane, when possible from that 
of the plane in which the deceased met his death. These 
crosses of highly polished wood glisten in the sunlight. 

Nothing so graphically typifies the enduring patriotism 
of the United States Army as the sea of unpainted wooden 
crosses marking the graves of American patriots in France. 

The poet-laureate of the Yankee Division was not a 
Yankee at all, but a big-hearted Southerner — Colonel Harry 
B. Anderson of Memphis, Tenn., division judge-advocate. 
The judge stepped right into the fold when he joined the 
division by pulling this one: 

"I'm a Yankee by adoption, but a Tennessean by birth." 

He was adopted on the spot. Under the nom de plume, 
"Tex Cavitt," Judge Anderson churned out quite a few 
poems dealing with army life and war. Here is one: 



OVERSEAS CEMETERIES 203 

THE Y-D CEMETERY 

The peasant children pass it as they leave the village school, 

The pious strangers cross themselves along the road to Toul, 

The captains call attention as the dusty troops plod by, 

The officers salute it though receiving no reply; 

'Tis a spot all brown and barren 'mid the poppies in the grain — 

The Y-D cemetery by a roadside in Lorraine. 

A row of wooden crosses and beneath the upturned sod 
The hearts once wild and restless now know the peace of God. 
The brave young lads who left us while life was at its flood, 
While life was fresh and joyous and fire was in the blood, 
Their young lives now enfranchised from mirth or joy or pain, 
They sleep the sleep eternal by a roadside in Lorraine. 

Of all the myriad places for the dead of man to rest, 

The graveyard of the warrior for a freeman is the best; 

Oh! not for them our pity, but far across the foam 

For the gray-haired mother weeping in some New England home, 

'Tis she who has our pity, 'tis she who feels the pain 

Of the Y-D cemetery by a roadside in Lorraine. 

The plodding columns pass them along the old Toul road; 

New companies come marching where yesterday they strode; 

Above, the whirr of motors — beyond, the roar of guns, 

Where their allies and their brothers join battle with the Huns. 

And the sunlight of their glory bursts through the clouds and rain, 

O'er the Y-D cemetery by a roadside in Lorraine. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Armistice Day 

BNow for the last hours of hostilities. 
The fighting ceased at a time easy to remember 
in future years — the ELEVENTH HOUR OF 
THE ELEVENTH DAY OF THE ELEVENTH 
MONTH, IN THE YEAR 1918. 

And what hours the final ones in the world war were ! 

What a conflict of emotions ! 

What hopes and despair ! 

Americans fell in the last hour — in the last fifteen 
minutes, while tidings of peace were being flashed around 
the globe to thrill the people of every land. 

The brave fellows who went to graves and hospitals in 
the closing hours were the greatest martyrs of them all. 
Men of the Yankee Division were in the list. 

New England units were among those ordered to attack 
that morning. I saw the victims buried next day. It was 
one of the saddest spectacles of the war. 

A few minutes more and they might have joined their 
comrades in celebrating the armistice as their relatives and 
friends did in a delirium of joy at home. 

But orders had come to straighten the lines and some 
units attacked and gained small strips of ground. Before 
others could obey, orders were rescinded, renewed and re- 
scinded. Obviously there had been a confusion of orders 
somewhere. 

It has been argued in defence of developments on the day 
of the armistice that it was physically impossible suddenly 
to terminate so gigantic a struggle without some closing 
action and casualties. I heard it said that foot couriers 

204 



ARMISTICE DAY 205 

dispatched to advanced positions arrived too late to avert 
attacks. 

Critics reply that it was generally known for days that 
the armistice would be signed. They say the Germans 
seemed content to rest on their arms and to confine their 
final efforts to brisk artillery fire. 

They said we should have done like the Germans. I 
heard it argued that it had been considered necessary to 
make a show up to the last minute, to which critics replied 
that it would have been wiser and more humane to have 
confined activities to artillery and saved the lives of dough- 
boys. 

Critics further point out that the scant ground gained in 
the last attacks had no strategical value in that within a few 
days the American Third Army, otherwise known as the 
Army of Occupation, crossed the German lines and ad- 
vanced unmolested through the Duchy of Luxembourg, 
along the valley of the Moselle and across the Rhine at the 
heels of the retreating German forces. 

This phase was sufficiently debated at the front to make 
it apparent, coupled with what visiting statesmen dropped, 
that the attacks ordered on the morning of the armistice 
would be among the features investigated. 

The weather was bad that day and had been for weeks. 
It had rained all night and for days. The chill penetrated 
to the marrow. It was the wet, risky climate prevalent in 
upper France in Winter, where there is much rain and little 
snow. There were slathers of mud. The rain had given 
place to a fog so dense that vision was limited. It would be 
hard to imagine a bleaker morning. 

The fog spread a weird shroud over the landscape. It 
gave a real battle effect, the kind conjured by popular fancy, 
but foreign to modern warfare. With smokeless powder 
used chiefly, there was not the smoke that civilians like to 
imagine and which artists are wont to employ. 

The camouflaged fencings, screening shelled roads, 
seemed superfluous that morning, though life-savers ni a 



206 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

brighter atmosphere. They looked in the fog like canvas 
posters at a circus sideshow. Motor ambulances filled 
with newly-wounded sped past. Shells whined overhead 
and exploded with a savage roar in our wake at the railhead 
in Verdun, which had been a target for the Germans for 
weeks. 

Shells cracked in the ruined villages through which we 
were obliged to pass. They flopped perilously close, in the 
soggy, uptorn fields. 

"A fine time to be bumped off, just before the last cur- 
tain," said Junius Wood of the Chicago News, "but I 
wouldn't miss it for a farm Down East." 

"It's worth the chance to be in on the finishing touches," 
said Jimmy Hooper of Collier's. "So poke her nose as far 
as possible today, driver. With this curtain we won't have 
to do as much mud- wading as on ordinary days." 

A German high explosive interrupted him. It struck 
just ahead to the right and our chauffeur put on more speed. 
We came to a world of war caves whose entrances were 
screened by ingenious lacings of grass-colored burlap in 
chicken wire; passed beyond the protecting fencing into a 
battle-swept land more hideous than ever in the fog and — 
were almost flung from our seats by the concussion of a 
salvo from massed American batteries of 155s. 

They had been so cleverly concealed to prevent sighting 
by enemy fliers that we were alongside before we discovered 
their presence by their sudden and thunderous outburst. 
Again the earth trembled and again a flock of mighty pro- 
jectiles traveled Bocheward. Then a voice that sounded 
very thin out there shouted: 

"Come on down! The mud is fine. Good for corns and 
bunions if you have any. Most of us have, and beaucoup 
cooties, too. We're all from Little Rhody. What about 
the armistice? Is it really coming at 11, or is it just some 
more bunk? We guys can't believe it, can we, fellows, after 
having pumped these old pals of ours at the Heinies so many 
months." 



ARMISTICE DAY 207 

The crew to which the owner of the voice belonged were 
hard at work with their guns in a hollow. They had drawn 
their battery into the open when the fog thickened, for freer 
action. There we all stood, taking the gambler's chance, 
while the gunners worked on until beads of perspiration 
stood out on their foreheads. 

Their youth impressed you. They were mostly boys in 
their teens, lads from home, doing the work of modern 
warriors, and doing it well. We had come into the positions 
of batteries of the 103d Field Artillery of the Yankee Di- 
vision and they certainly looked good to me. To our left in 
the lee of a ridge French batteries were in action. It was a 
stirring scene. 

Captain Theodore C. Hascould of Lincoln Avenue, East 
Providence, R. I., was in command of B Battery, of which 
we became guests on the spot. Carrying ammunition, 
loading, priming, directing fire, all doing their bits like a well- 
oiled machine, were Sergeant Howard E. Alysworth of 
Natick, R. I.; Sergeant J. G. Emerson, No. 151 Howell 
Street, Providence; Corporal L. B. Smith of South Hadley 
Falls, Mass.; Corporal Raymond D. Booth, East Green- 
wich; Privates Alfred Roberts, No. 58 Sweet Avenue, Paw- 
tucket; James Aitkin, Waverly; George Jackson, No. 1891 
Smith Street, and George and Andrew Patterson, brothers, 
of Bellcourt Avenue, North Providence, and Ernest Melvin, 
No. 593 Broadway; Royal F. Sheridan, No. 1040 Broad 
Street, Justin B. Richardson, No. 103 Ruggles street, and 
Louis Watson, No. 14 Norton street, all of Providence. 

They were hungry for "the latest dope." They had 
time to ask questions, joke and puff cigarettes between 
rounds well directed at the enemy. 

"These are French guns and we've grown to love them. 
This bouncer here has done fine work and never went wrong. 
A shell hit near the limber one day and got a few of our fel- 
lows, but our squad has been mighty lucky compared to 
others," said Corporal Smith. 



208 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"Better knock on wood," suggested Sheridan. "You 
know what they say when a fellow crows. There is plenty 
of time to kick up our toes." 

"Suppose a bruiser landed among us," said Roberts. 
"It would make a mess with all of us in the open. But I 
feel that it isn't going to happen. I've got a hunch we're all 
going home." 

There was a howl of delight when out of the fog from a 
point farther front came Hugh L. Donnelly of No. 75 Doyle 
Avenue, Providence, one of the Knights of Columbus field 
secretaries attached to the Yankee Division, with a shoulder 
bag stuffed with gum, sweet chocolate, cigarettes and matches. 
He handed them around free, and my, weren't those contribu- 
tions welcome! They instilled new pep into the men. 

A youngster, offered the third light from a match, blew it 
out and asked for a fresh match. He was living up to the 
army superstition that bad luck pursues the person who 
lights pipe, cigar or cigarette from a match that has lighted 
two before. 

They were interested in the story we told them about 
Lieutenant Ralph Estep, a magazine photographer, who was 
killed by a shell a few days before. Estep had defied death 
over and over again crouched in craters snapping bursting 
shells and getting "action" as the waves went in. He had 
done the same thing in the Balkans and on the Italian front. 

Like most soldiers, he automatically became a fatalist. 
It was his notion that if a shell had your number it would 
get you; that it was no use to try to dodge it. Most of us 
felt the same about it. 

The day Estep was bumped off he had accepted the third 
light from a match and correspondents twitted him. He 
said with a smile: 

"Bunk! Some match concern invented that line to 
promote sales." It proved to be true in his case. Lieuten- 
ant Estep was as brave as he was ambitious. We all liked 
him and his pictures told of his fearlessness and success as a 
war photographer. 



ARMISTICE DAY 209 

The Boche pumped a lot of big ones while we were with 
the Rhode Island artillerymen, but fate was merciful to 
those in our circle that day, though we saw less fortunate 
men fall close by. 

Finally the last hour came and dragged itself away, the 
last half hour, fifteen minutes, five minutes, the guns of B 
Battery steadily spitting flame and steel. 

Everybody kept consulting wrist watches as the hour 
hand slipped nearer 11. At two minutes before the mo- 
mentous hour, one of the crew hurried to a hole in the side 
of the hill and brought out the cook, Arthur O'Neil of No. 
551 Columbus Avenue, Boston. O'Neil wore a soiled apron 
and a grin. 

Somebody hitched a clothes line on the gun in order that 
all might have a hand in the last shot. At 11 o'clock every- 
body yanked vigorously at the signal, but the rope broke and 
had to be fixed. It was a shade after the hour set when B 
Battery's last shot in the world war reverberated among the 
shell-torn hills north of Verdun. 

A youngster mechanically started to clean the gun as he 
had done day in and day out, for months. Corporal Smith, 
a wink our way, asked: 

"What are you doing?" 

"Polishing her off for the next round," said the other in- 
differently. 

"But there ain't going to be no next round," replied 
Corporal Smith, with a chuckle. "The war is over. Fini 
la guerre." 

"Hell!" drawled the scrupulous one, drowsily. "I for- 
got." 

They gave three cheers. Somebody suggested a flag- 
raising. Circling and leaping shell craters, we hastened to 
a row of battered dugouts where the trunk of a sapling was 
erected. A flag was produced from a bedding roll. 

A captain, a manly chap whose name I have forgotten, 
broke the colors at the peak and we all went the customary 
military salute one better by uncovering in the mist and 



210 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

singing "The Star Spangled Banner." The captain made a 
little speech offhand that was a gem. He spoke of the 
loyalty and pluck and patience of the American troops. He 
spoke of Old Glory with a tenderness that was impressive, 
and pointing up at it shouted proudly: 

"No nation can ever sully or humble those colors." 

Three ringing cheers indorsed those words. 

He began his speech, "Ladies and gentlemen." When 
some one asked why he included the ladies with none to 
hear, he answered quick as a flash: 

"Because the ladies, your mothers and my mother, and 
our sisters, wives and sweethearts, God bless them, are 
uppermost in our minds in this happy hour. Isn't that 
right, fellows?" 

The hills echoed with the cries, "You betcha, cap!" 

"Three cheers and a tiger for the womenfolk at home!" 
said the captain, and they were given with fervor. 

That scene was another in the series of historic tableaux 
that day. It brought a lump into your throat. It made 
you feel oh! how proud that you were an American! 

The following order stopped the fighting: 

Secret. 

HEADQUARTERS TWENTY-SIXTH DIVISION, 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE, 

Field Orders 11 November, '18. 

No. 106. 

1. Hostilities will cease upon the entire front at 11.00 o'clock, 
11 November, '18 (today), French time. 

2. Troops will not cross the line reached at that hour under 
any circumstances, unless ordered by these headquarters. 

3. An immediate reconnaissance of the front line will be made 
by each front line battalion commander at 11.00 o'clock, showing 
the exact location of all his units on a sketch and by co-ordinates. 
This sketch will be forwarded to these headquarters with the 
least practicable delay. Regimental and brigade commanders 
will take the necessary steps to arrange for couriers for the prompt 
transmission of this information. 



ARMISTICE DAY 211 

4. Regimental and brigade commanders will, as soon as 
practicable after 11.00 o'clock this date, personally check the 
locations of their front line elements. This information will be 
placed on a 1-20,000 sketch and also transmitted to these head- 
quarters with the least possible delay. 

5. Under no circumstances will officers and enlisted men of 
this division fraternize with the enemy. 

6. Troops will be kept ready for any eventuality and measures 
of security will not be relaxed. 

7. Organization commanders must maintain a high state of 
discipline in their units. 

By command of Brigadier-General Bamford: 

DUNCAN K. MAJOR, Jr. 
DISTRIBUTION : Chief of Staff. 

Down to include 
company commanders. 

Similar orders were simultaneously issued to all combat 
units. 

We left the advanced artillery positions and stumbled 
along on foot through country made ghastly by the wrath of 
men, a country won within a few hours by our waves of in- 
fantry. How any survived that inferno was a mystery. 
Everywhere there was destruction, desolation, misery, 
death. 

And MUD. 

Sticky, filthy mud, with bodies half buried in it. 

To advance without crouching or fear of a sniper's bullet 
was a new and pleasant sensation. It was a feeling that it 
took the soldiers hours thoroughly to appreciate and get 
used to. 

Around the brow of a hill I met Sergeant "Jimmy" 
Loughlin of the 101st Infantry, a star football player in 
Boston. He was carrying ten pounds of France on each 
foot. He said he was "glad the argument was over." 

I found no dissenters. Near a tough-looking dugout I 
met Captain (now Major) Judson Hannigan, adjutant of 
the Fifty-second Infantry Brigade, his eye bandaged. 
"Jud" was as full of pep as ever. I never met a chap with 



212 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

more vitality. He was always on his toes, which accounted 
for his rapid advancement. 

He was only a sergeant when he made such a hit in Bos- 
ton stumping at recruiting rallies. Then he became a 
lieutenant and won a captain's bars for meritorious service 
at the front. 

Speaking of meeting friends in odd places reminds me 
that the front was the greatest place for unexpected reunions. 
So was the whole of France and even the occupied section of 
Germany. You came across acquaintances in the most un- 
expected places. 

The day the skirmishers in our Army of Occupation 
crossed the German boundary I met "Joe" Lawless of 
Waltham, international marksman and formerly a member 
of the old Ninth Regiment. He was captain of infantry in 
the Twenty-eighth Division, had been shot in the leg and 
had just been evacuated from a hospital. He and another 
captain were sitting on a wall at a crossroads in Germany. 
They were tired and were waiting for a lift. 

Joe saw me first and I told them both to hop in. I 
carried them to a point where they picked up their regiment 
and then hurried to Treves to see the first American dough- 
boys march through that famous German city, in the middle 
of which stands the ruins of an ancient Roman tower. 

Lawless was hit while fighting in the Argonne, but his 
wound was not serious. He looked a little pale, owing to 
confinement at the hospital, but said he was feeling fine and 
he wanted to hear all the news about the gang in the Twenty- 
sixth Division. 

On a hot Sunday afternoon in La Ferti, in the Marne 
sector, I was astonished to meet George Shor, formerly of 
the Boston American. He was sporting a captain's uniform 
and was attached to intelligence headquarters of the First 
Corps. 

That afternoon I met Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt and 
other prominent American fliers at an aerodrome which had 
been hurriedly laid out back of Chateau Thierry. A week 



ARMISTICE DAY 213 

later when I visited the same group, four of the eight 
aviators I had chatted with the previous Sunday, including 
Roosevelt, were dead. That will show you how rapidly 
Uncle Sam's birdmen were killed in an active sector. 

After the armistice, in a cafe in Coblenz, on the Rhine, 
we American correspondents interviewed a diminutive Ger- 
man ace who claimed to have downed Quentin Roosevelt. 
Next day this ace and several others were testing planes be- 
fore they were turned over to the Americans and the man 
who claimed he was responsible for Roosevelt's death took 
a nose dive and was nearly killed. It was queer to stand on 
an enemy aerodrome up there among the castles on the Rhine 
and to think that men who had engaged our fliers and who 
had bombed us nightly had started from that self-same field. 

At the aerodrome of "Eddie" Rickenbacker's "Hat-in- 
the-Ring" squadron back of the Argonne front I met Lieu- 
tenant Lucien Thayer of the Boston Globe staff. He was 
collecting data as historian of aviation for the War Depart- 
ment and had an army photographer along snapping pic- 
tures of Rickenbacker and other star duellists of the air. 

In the city of Luxembourg, capital of the Duchy of Luxem- 
bourg, I came across John J. Donovan, also a former member 
of the Boston Globe staff and a well-known Boston lawyer. 
Jack was director of Knights of Columbus welfare work in 
the occupied territory of Germany. He rode into enemy 
land on a truck filled with gumdrops and soap and other 
good things, which he distributed free to the soldiers. 

The doughboys had been fed up on sweet chocolate for 
moons by every welfare organization, and Edward L. Hearn 
of Worcester, overseas commissioner for the Knights of Co- 
lumbus, managed somehow to procure a load of gumdrops, 
something that hadn't been seen on the front before. He 
was tipped that soap was scarce in Germany also, and sent 
along a big supply of that, and Director Donovan reached 
the Rhine a week ahead of the secretaries of any other wel- 
fare organization, but he had to undergo no end of discomfort 
to accomplish the feat in bad weather with roads congested 



214 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

by army traffic. The soldiers called him "Santa Claus 
Jack." He sure was busy and popular. 

Commissioner Hearn made frequent trips to the Ameri- 
can sector in Germany. His headquarters were in Paris, in 
the big business block No. 16 Place de la Madeleine, oppo- 
site the celebrated church of that name. The Knights of 
Columbus rented the entire building and things hummed 
there. 

The French were talking of decorating "Ned" Hearn with 
the Legion of Honor the day I sat in his office before going to 
Brest for the trip home. He was working about twenty 
hours a day. The French showed their appreciation of the 
K. of C. war work in countless ways. So did generals com- 
manding American combat divisions, because it was in the 
combat zone that the K. of C, like the Salvation Army, 
concentrated and made good as a war welfare organization. 
The K. of C. system of simply acting as a distributing 
agency in handling the contributions of the American 
public and giving everything to the soldiers " free " made 
a big hit. 

Here are a few samples of the gratitude voluntarily ex- 
pressed by division commanders: 

HEADQUARTERS THIRTY-THIRD DIVISION. 

January 19, 1919. 

"Mr. Edward L. Hearn, Overseas Commissioner, Knights of Co- 
lumbus : 

"Dear Sir — In the name of the Thirty-third Division, I wish to 
thank you for the generous supply of stationery, cigarettes, sport- 
ing goods, etc., which you delivered to Chaplain A. L. Girard for 
this division. 

"Coming at a time when, because of traffic congestion, supplies 
of this kind were very scarce, they were especially appreciated by 
all the men. The chaplain has reported how generous the Knights 
of Columbus have been in responding to his requests, what a fine 
spirit of service they have shown in doing everything possible to 
facilitate his getting the supplies loaded, etc., and I wish to assure 



ARMISTICE DAY 215 

you that these things are appreciated by all of us, and make us 
feel confident that we can rely upon the Knights of Columbus to 
assist us in keeping up the splendid spirit of the men of our division. 

"Very truly, 

"GEO. BELL, JR., 

"Major-General, U.S. A., Commanding." 

HEADQUARTERS NINETY-FIRST DIVISION. 
AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES. 
A. P. O. 776. 

March 18, 1919. 

"Mr. Edward L. Hearn, Overseas Commissioner, Knights of Co- 
lumbus, 16 Place de la Madeleine, Paris, France : 

"My dear Mr. Hearn — On the eve of relief of the Ninety-first 
Division from duty with the American Expeditionary Forces, in 
compliance with orders to return to the United States, I wish to 
express the gratitude of officers and men of the division to the 
Knights of Columbus, and through you to all members of that 
society, for the assistance rendered this division during its service 
in the recent campaign. The first representative of the Knights 
of Columbus, Mr. E. M. Leonard, reported to me at Gondrecourt, 
about Sept. 9, just as the division was marching to the positions 
assigned for the St. Mihiel salient operation. He was with the 
division during its participation in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. 

"The following members of the Knights of Columbus joined 
the division in October, while en route to Belgium: Messrs. John 
Pender, John W. Rowles, Thomas P. McCollough, John Cav- 
anaugh and Frank P. Whalen. During the service of this division 
with the French Army of Belgium the assistance furnished by the 
Knights of Columbus was especially valuable, since the division 
was operating so far from any American base and so far from its 
own railhead that it was difficult to procure from the supply de- 
partments of the army over French railways the kinds of supplies 
which the Knights of Columbus were able to furnish. 

"Since Jan. 1 the division has been in the La Forte Bernard 
area under the Second American Corps and the American Em- 
barkation Centre, Le Mans. During this period of preparation of 
embarkation our main problem has been the preservation of the 
men's health and contentment, while awaiting transportation. 
The assistance rendered by the Knights of Columbus in this area 
has rendered it easier for commanders of units to promote the 
health and contentment of the men. 



216 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"I enclose statement of the personnel of your society which has 
served with this division during the campaign and a brief state- 
ment of their activities and operations. I trust that the efforts of 
these gentlemen will be appreciated by you and by the members 
of the society you represent. A copy of this letter is furnished the 
adjutant-general, American Expeditionary Forces, for informa- 
tion of the commander-in-chief. 

"Yours sincerely, 

WILLIAM H. JOHNSTON, 
"Major-General, U. S. A., Commanding." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The War Curtain 

BAt the front we heard varied descriptions of how 
the armistice was celebrated in Europe and at home. 
We heard from cowboy soldiers that in Montana 
ranch towns the folks danced all night in the 
streets and bought up all the available fireworks. 

We heard how employees of department stores, shops and 
factories all over the United States quit work and joined the 
street throngs in swarms of paraders that resembled snake 
dances. 

We heard of the confetti blizzards, and of the bell ring- 
ing, and of the mad tooting, and the speeches, and the feast- 
ing, and the heartfelt rejoicing in every city, town and ham- 
let. 

We heard from special correspondents and visitors that 
Paris went wild with joy, and that London, too, was fit- 
tingly exultant. We heard of the crowded cafes in Paris, 
where emotion ran riot, where girls danced on tables and 
embraced and kissed soldiers, and of the revelry of the 
boulevards. 

Memorable scenes, but those of us who were with the 
fighting men in the front lines when the hostilities ceased 
would not have swapped our thrills and impressions for all 
the delirium of rejoicings that occurred elsewhere. 

The contrast was great. For the most part the troops 
were too stunned and mystified, too exhausted to do much 
celebrating right off. They cheered some and had im- 
promptu flag-raisings such as I described in the group of 
Rhode Island artillerymen, but the big idea at first was to 
sleep — to sleep in comfort without fear of gas or bombs or 
shells — to sleep as they hadn't been able to in months and 
months — to sleep the sleep so well earned. 

217 



218 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

They did not require any sleeping powders. I saw them 
flop where they finished and sleep the slumber of death — in 
mud and musty dugouts, in tumbledown buildings, in 
ruined churches and stables, wherever they found a place to 
crawl. 

When they awoke they talked of strange dreams and 
rubbed their eyes and couldn't believe it was true. They 
expected to return to the awful grind. You should have 
witnessed the gratitude that came from way down in the 
heart. I heard a fellow who hadn't been burdened with 
religion say: 

"God, I thank you!" 

Just that and no more, but the four words told volumes. 
No orchestra in any gilded cafe vibrant with armistice cele- 
brations could produce music sweeter than the thanksgiving 
of the soldiers. After the first fag vanished they joked and 
sang and made merry. 

It was not until darkness spread its mantle over the 
battlefields that the real front line celebrations began. 
Then the heavens reflected the exuberance of the American 
troops in the glow of myriad bonfires and the flare of signal 
rockets for which there would be no further use. 

The sky was bejewelled and seamed with varied colored 
rockets and slow descending umbrella flares. 

Every unit and squad had its own celebration and its own 
allotment of army fireworks. The hills bristled with them. 
Imagine expanding Boston Common or Franklin Park on the 
night of July 4, during a fireworks display, so that the rocket 
area extended miles and miles, far beyond vision. Motoring 
over the heights north of Verdun and viewing the valleys 
and lower hills unfolded a picture that will never fade from 
memory. 

The rockets were so numerous and so recklessly aimed 
that it was almost as dangerous on the shell-pitted roads as 
during a battle. Camp fires dotted the landscape every few 
yards and each was ringed by young huskies in olive drab 
whose faces formed a striking circle from a distance. 



THE WAR CURTAIN 219 

They were swapping experiences, telling all about it, 
spinning the war yarns that will be spun in homes and col- 
leges and schools and factories and village barber shops and 
groceries for generations — spilling what the doughboy had 
already christened "G. A. R. chatter." 

You who enjoyed home comforts and steam heat 
and open fireplaces and bath tubs cannot appreciate what 
it meant to the fagged doughboys and ofl&cers to be able to 
stand up and light a pipe or cigarette facing the enemy line 
and not be nipped for doing it. 

You cannot realize how good the fires looked and how 
much better they felt. The doughboys were famished for 
fire and warmth, for the dry, warm glow it gave them clear 
to the bone. Little wonder that the wood details were the 
first selected to scour the battlefield for fuel. Little wonder 
that every five or six men had fires of their own in front of 
which they squatted Turk fashion and talked until taps. 

During hostilities the flame of a match meant enemy 
fire. Do you remember the darkened den scene in Sherlock 
Holmes when the lighted cigar placed as a decoy on the win- 
dow sill was the only thing visible? Aviators say a tiny 
light at the front looked that way in the dark and served as 
a target for bombs. 

I remember before the First Division took Cantigny, the 
Gothas bombed Chepois and all the towns to Beauvais and 
beyond nightly. Early in the air raids eleven doughboys 
were shooting craps on an army blanket under an apple 
tree by the aid of lantern light. They heard the tell-tale 
buzz of enemy motors overhead, but the game was close and 
stakes were high, and they didn't follow the French caution 
to show no light. A Hun flier swooped low as a night 
hawk, dropped a bomb and killed all but one. 

I saw an Italian machine gunner near Rheims strike a 
match in a retiring unit one night and instantly a German 
aviator opened up on the column with a machine gun. 
Automobile lights were visible for miles. That is why we 
had to travel without them at night, and that was why long 



220 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

after the armistice, when we enjoyed that luxury, sentries 
through force of habit would bawl out, "Douse those glim- 
mers!" and then apologize, saying they had forgotten. 

In conclusion, I will describe a scene which to me shall 
always serve as the final drop of the war curtain. 

It was late in the afternoon of the day following the 
armistice. As if in mockery, the Weather Man switched on 
a run of crisp, dry, clear days that lasted more than a fort- 
night, after having compelled the troops to fight and shiver 
in rain and languish in mud for weeks previously. 

A more perfect Winter afternoon could not be desired. 
We had forged our way on foot over a country once beau- 
tiful, but now blighted by war. 

The 101st Engineers were rebuilding what had been a 
road. There was the sign of fury everywhere. Shell after 
shell had partly disinterred the arms, legs or heads of 
Frenchmen who had fallen in earlier battles. Often just a 
mere daub of blue was visible where arm or hip or shoulder 
showed. 

We followed a footpath through "Shrapnel Valley," a 
deep ravine pocked by shell craters and yawning with dugouts 
now abandoned. We met a doughboy from Vermont. He 
pointed to a file of musicians, instruments under their arms, 
coming Indian file over a hill. 

"They're going to play at the funeral of the fellows 
who fell in the last hours. There is one large grave 
dug on this hill and two other big ones for fellows found on 
neighboring hills," explained the doughboy, tagging on 
behind. 

We were then climbing the slopes of the Cote de 
Caures, which the Third Battalion of the 103d Infantry of 
the Yankee Division took in a final charge in the face of 
violent machine gun fire, and the price was the silent forms 
harvested in rows on the hills. 

In the centre of a clearing at the top was a grave thirty 
feet long. Comrades of the dead, ranks thinned by the toll 
of the last engagement, were flanking the hole in hollow 



THE WAR CURTAIN 221 

square. The band took its position at a corner. Thrice 
that band had been nearly wiped out serving as litter- 
bearers. That day all that remained were eighteen of an 
organization that had numbered fifty or more. 

You who have attended military funerals at home know 
how solemn they are, but add the ghastly setting of a battle- 
field with scars scarcely twenty-four hours old, and the scene 
becomes far more impressive. 

The bodies of Germans dotted the landscape. There 
had not been time to dispose of them. The doughboys first 
received all the rites of army and church. 

At the bottom of the big hole, shoulder to shoulder as 
they had fought, lay eleven dead, a lieutenant and ten 
doughboys. A large sheet of tarpaulin covered them and 
in the centre of it was spread an American flag. 

Chaplain A. G. Butzer of Buffalo, N. Y., as young as a 
college senior, read the Scriptures and eulogized the dead 
patriots. Captain (now Major) Charles R. Cabot of Cam- 
bridge, who had led the Third Battalion as acting major, 
stepped forward and uncovered. He wore the muddy uni- 
form of a doughboy, without insignia, it having been the 
custom to take this precaution in the event of capture and 
resulting inquisition. Captain Cabot looked tired. There 
were dark circles under his eyes, but he met the occasion 
with spirit. 

"Men," he said, "this is a solemn hour. This hill has 
become sacred ground. We are laying away the best among 
us. You all faced your duty, stern as it was, but it was or- 
dained by a Higher Power that the sacrifice made by our 
comrades was to be greater than ours. They gave their all 
for the cause. It is your duty to go back and tell their rela- 
tives and friends how gallantly they died. They were 
brave fellows, true Americans, real men. 

"As some of you may already know, First Lieutenant 
Herbert Peart was found sitting beside a tree, pencil in one 
hand and holding in the other this unfinished note addressed 
to me: 



222 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

" 'Captain Cabot: 7.19 A.M. Am held up by machine 
gun fire on left. Have located four of them. Also on my 
right ' 

"A machine gun bullet through the brain stopped further 
writing. Lieutenant Peart was a gallant leader and he met 
a soldier's death on the field of battle. The brave fellows 
beside him are Corporal Leon le Bonville and Privates 
Charles Worth, Frank Klavikowski, J. McGiven, John 
Elliott, F. R. Snow, Albert O. Abraham, Charles W. Bar- 
giall, William Whitney and Moses W. Neptune." 

That grave holds a squad of men whose names were typi- 
cal of the cosmopolitan makeup of the American Expedi- 
tionary Forces. 

The band played "Nearer, My God, to Thee," a tune 
always soul-gripping, but I had never heard it, nor expect to 
hear it, under sadder circumstances. It moistened the eyes 
of many of the youngsters who stood rigidly around the 
grave and made them gulp. 

The last strains had scarcely died when there came grat- 
ing on our ears the sounds of German revelry in the hollow 
just over the brow of the hill within fifty yards. The Boches 
sang and shouted and churned gas alarms, unconscious of 
what was transpiring on the summit. 

The firing squad stepped forward and fired three volleys, 
a feature impossible during hostilities. 

Ranks were broken and the men filed past for a last look, 
and I noticed that the eyes of all but a few were directed the 
other way. Then something happened which could not have 
been more melodramatic if Belasco had staged it as the 
climax of a play. 

Four horsemen trotted into view at the farther end of the 
hill, dismounted, and three soldiers stepped briskly forward 
into the clearing. To the amazement of all it turned out to 
be a German major, a captain and an orderly, a giant from 
the Prussian Guards, the latter bearing a flag of truce, the 
first one in actual use that any of us had ever seen. 



THE WAR CURTAIN 223 

The German major was a snobbish young dandy with 
Iron Cross and other decorations, uniform of faultless cut 
and silver spurs. Saluting stiffly and being saluted, he 
critically surveyed Captain Cabot from head to foot and 
said in good English that he wanted to see a major or some- 
body of rank. 

"I think, sir, that I can deal with you if you kindly state 
your business," replied Captain Cabot, head erect and look- 
ing the enemy squarely in the eye. 

The German major appeared confused. He studied 
Captain Cabot's doughboy uniform again and seemed trying 
to impress and freeze everybody within range. But the 
doughboys who crowded close refused to be frozen. As the 
situation became most embarassing a doughboy just arrived 
on the outskirts piped shrilly: 

"Who's the skinny Heine, fellows?" 

The German major blushed, bit his lip and wilted. A 
few minutes later the American and German officers ad- 
journed to a dugout where the German with the flag of truce 
stood guard. It developed that the truce party had come 
with charts to explain the location of mines that would have 
been touched off by the Germans if the fighting had 
continued. There were several just ahead. They were 
compelled under the armistice terms to make these 
disclosures. 

While the conference was in progress in the dugout we 
returned to the top of the hill and watched the detail remove 
the flag and fill the cavernous grave. 

In a valley on the left the ruins of a French village re- 
sembled a chalk quarry. The face of the earth had been 
lashed like an ocean in a storm by the fury of artillery. 

American soldiers unable to wait for dusk began shooting 
rockets, as did equally impatient Germans just across the 
line. The rockets looked queer in the fading daylight. 

The sun, huge and red, was slipping behind and outlining 
the scarred edges of a hill. Trees, twisted, splintered and 
blackened, showed against the sun like charcoal scrawls. 



224 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

An American sentry in steel helmet, rifle over shoulder, 
bayonet fixed, was silhouetted at an extreme outpost and he 
was facing — West. 

He was facing the way the gangplanks pointed over 
which the Yankee Division and thousands and thousands 
more would soon smartly pace — the long-awaited gangway 
— the bridge whose western end was America and — HOME. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Homeward Bound 

BIt was Tuesday, the fourth day out. We were in 
mid-ocean. We were homeward bound at last and 
the U. S. S. transport America was ploughing 
smartly through a smooth sea. 

I found Dave Brickley leaning against the rail of the 
promenade deck, pensively watching the waves. Dave 
worked as chemist for the American Sugar Company in 
peace time. The game of war had made him bigger, and he 
was no zephyr when he went away. 

"Just thinking of the difference," said he. "I was a 
buck private cutting meat in the transport galley when I 
came over and I'm going back with a captain's bars and a 
Distinguished Service Cross and a bundle of experience. 

"Rough, but worth while. Some of the places were hell- 
holes. Once we were cut off two days without grub or water 
and I managed to get back with four men, about all in. It's 
great to be going home with two legs and arms and a sound 
constitution, but come to think of it, you leave something 
over there. Bound to squeeze something out of a fellow. 

"Johnny Murphy of Natick started as a machine gun 
lieutenant on the border, went to France a captain, and is 
returning ahead of us on the Mt. Vernon a lieutenant- 
colonel, and ranking machine gun officer of the division and 
sporting a Croix de Guerre and a Distinguished Service 
Cross. That's climbing. He had enough nerve for a whole 
company." 

Lieutenant Jack Casey of Brookline and a group of 
officers were stretched on steamer chairs, telling censorship 
stories. 

"Some of the doughboys wrote hot letters," said Casey. 
"Talk about confidential epistles to a matrimonial bureau. 

225 



226 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

One day a big boob came to me blubbering like a baby and 
he was one of the tallest guys in the regiment. Tears were 
streaming down his cheeks. He held out a letter and a hunk 
of wedding cake. 'Just got these from my girl,' he said. 
'Promised to wait for me, and now she's gone and married 
another guy and had the nerve to send me a bit of the cake. 
What would you do, lieutenant?' 

"I advised him to tear up the letter and gobble up the 
cake, and if it didn't kill him, to report to me next morning. 
Later that day I saw him strolling down the road with his 
arm around a mademoiselle and there didn't seem to be any 
danger of suicide or lawsuits." 

On the bridge I came across a captain of infantry, young 
and clean-cut. He was standing alone, looking ahead, and 
his expression was sad. He was one of the casuals traveling 
with the Yankee Division. He came from Indiana and had 
been fighting with a Texas outfit. 

"Yes, it's a fine day, but there isn't much left in life for 
me," he said glumly. "Got a cable at Brest that my wife 
had died and the message was a month old. Flu took her. 
Head whirled when I read it. Trunk is stuffed with gifts 
for her and our little son. If it wasn't for him I'd sooner 
kick off myself. I'll dedicate my life to him. Can hardly 
wait to see him. After all we went through over there I'm 
facing a desolate home." 

The decks below us were smeared with olive drab. 
Soldiers were sprawled thick. I thought of the joy their 
return would occasion in many New England homes. I 
thought how eagerly relatives awaited their coming and I 
thought, too, how the arrival of the troops would make more 
poignant the grief in homes to which soldier lads would never 
return. 

Yes, we were homeward bound. 

All hands had longed for it and prayed for it for months. 

The men of the Yankee Division wondered when the 
glad day would come. They had wondered, too, who among 
them would live to see it. It looked awfully remote and un- 



HOMEWARD BOUND 227 

certain at times. It was the big goal for everybody after 
the armistice — HOME. 

When the time to embark came there was an utter 
absence of demonstration. The get-away might be summed 
up in a series of capital S's— SERIOUSNESS, SOLEM- 
NITY, SILENCE. 

The silence was uncanny. The behavior of the New 
England troops on leaving France, after eighteen months of 
service, was a study. It was the most outstanding feature 
of the trip homeward. Everybody on board discussed it. 
There was no mystery about it. A rumor started, as army 
rumors do, that a New York unit which had been too hilari- 
ous had been detained. This report so deeply impressed the 
Twenty-sixth Division men that they almost feared to 
speak, even to bunkies. Word had been passed down the 
ranks to be cautious and to give no opportunity to interfere 
with the sailing schedule. 

This dread was confined to the doughboys. It created 
a timidity among them which reflected their intense eager- 
ness to get started as quickly as possible. Hence the silence 
was more significant than a demonstration. The men pre- 
served their sphynx-like attitude all the way out on the 
lighters to the transport lying down the harbor. A band 
playing lively tunes on the dock failed to enthuse the soldiers. 
The big idea was to get aboard the ship and it was accom- 
plished with dispatch. 

Wonderful things were done by the army and the navy 
at Brest in the transporting of troops after the armistice. 
American war divisions, numbering 27,000 men, with equip- 
ment and baggage, were handled with greater speed and 
ease than a regiment would be transported in the old days. 
The war taught Uncle Sam a lot of tricks about the move- 
ment of troops and taught him also how to clothe and feed 
an army. 

Major-General Helmick, commander of the port of Brest, 
and his staff had everything running like a well-oiled ma- 
chine. There was not the slightest delay or confusion. 



228 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

The men of the Yankee Division found Pontanezen Camp, 
on the outskirts of Brest, sanitary and well equipped for the 
housing and feeding of thousands of troops. 

There appeared to have been ground for criticism owing 
to early conditions at the camp, due largely to natural handi- 
caps in a region where it rained more than 300 days the pre- 
vious year. But matters were promptly improved in spite 
of the weather drawbacks. When the New England units 
reached Pontanezen they found it duck-boarded and tidy. 
They agreed that the billeting there was the best they had 
in France. 

Each soldier was provided with an iron bunk, a mattress 
and plenty of blankets. There was a stove in every tent, 
making quarters dry and comfortable. The eating system 
was appreciated. 

The Troop Movement unit on the dock was equally on 
the job. Colonel Daniel Van Voorhis, a cavalry officer, in 
charge of troop embarkation, had perfected a system that 
worked like a charm. Nearly 7000 men assigned to the 
transport America, with mountains of luggage, were lightered 
from the dock to the transport in less than three hours and 
every man and piece of baggage were accounted for. 

The organization which made this feat possible was 
started by four officers who began in a shanty on the wharf — 
Lieutenant-Colonel F. F. Jewitt, Major Roger Chatham, 
Lieutenant D. S. Barry and Lieutenant E. A. Sellanach. 
The Troop Movement Section developed like a mushroom. 
When the Yankee Division reached Brest the section had 
grown into quite an extensive plant, with sheds and offices, 
elaborate records and files, rest rooms, canteeens and a 
hospital. 

The system of checking had been developed so scientifi- 
cally that quite a few men reported killed or missing were 
discovered in the embarkation lists, much to the joy of 
relatives. This proved of great assistance to the War De- 
partment records. 



HOMEWARD BOUND 229 

The shipment of troops to the United States swelled 
from 47,532 in December, 1918, to 65,647 in January, 
100,725 in February and 102,263 up to March 29, which 
figures included the Yankee Division. 

The army and naval authorities worked in perfect har- 
mony, with the result that transports were sent homeward 
in a steady stream. They resembled shuttles. Everything 
possible was done for the convenience and comfort of the 
home-going troops. Lieutenant Jack Mahan, aide-de- 
camp to General Helmick, was a factor in the success of 
operations at Brest. He was known as the "handy man." 
He attended to everything from hunting lost baggage to 
entertaining potentates. 

The first unit of the Twenty-sixth Division to reach 
Pontanezen Camp was the 104th regiment, which started 
leaving the Le Mans area March 21. In succeeding days 
the 103d Infantry moved, followed by the 101st Infantry, 
and the 102d Infantry was the last of the New England foot 
troops to reach Brest. The trains and sanitary units were 
being sent meanwhile. The artillery was the last big con- 
tingent to reach port. 

It was announced in general orders that the first 15,000 
of the Yankee Division would sail on March 29, 30 and 31. 
Instead of occuring later, as expected, the schedule was 
beaten by two days. General Hale and his division staff 
and headquarters troop sailed from Brest on the transport 
Mt. Vernon late Thursday, March 27. The Mt. Vernon 
also carried the 104th Infantry and the 101st Engineers, a 
total of 5600 men. 

The transport America, which weighed anchor at 6.35 
on the evening of Friday, March 28, carried Boston's pet 
regiment, the 101st Infantry, complete, Company C of the 
101st Engineers, and the 103d Infantry, minus Companies 
L and M. The America carried headquarters of the Fifty- 
first Brigade and 200 casuals, a ship's family of 6,830, ex- 
clusive of the 400 officers and 1100 members of the crew, 
which brought the total to 8330. 



230 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

On Sunday, March 30, the transport Agamemnon, sister 
ship of the Mt. Vernon, sailed from Brest, carrying the 102d 
Infantry complete, Companies L and M of the 103d Infantry, 
the 101st Machine Gun Battalion, Base Hospital No. 4, 
101st Field Artillery headquarters company, Batteries A and 
B, and 196 casuals, a total of 5380 enlisted men and 484 
officers, exclusive of 150 women nurses and welfare workers 
and detached units. 

Early in April Brigadier-General John Sherburne of 
Brookline, commanding the Fifty-first Artillery Brigade, 
sailed with the balance of the artillery units on the Mongolia, 
and on later transports came the 102d and 103d Machine 
Gun Battalions, 101st Ammunition Train, Supply and 
Sanitary Trains and the 101st Motor Repair Unit. All 
Yankee Division transports docked at Boston within a week 
of the first one. The plan to send about 10,000 men of the 
division by way of New York was abandoned at the eleventh 
hour, and it was well. 

The transport America slipped away from the shores of 
France under a clouded sky as dusk was gathering. Decks 
were swarmed. There was no singing or shouting. The 
only noise was the hum of the engines. Soldiers leaned 
against the rails watching the coast line fade, in such pro- 
found thought that they scarcely spoke to those at their 
elbows. It was a solemn occasion. 

"I thought they'd make the welkin ring," remarked a 
captain. 

"More like a funeral ship than a home-going transport," 
said a lieutenant. "The men were scared blue by those 
stories in Brest. That accounts for the wet-blanket get- 
away." 

"Most of them act like men stunned or in a trance," said 
a chaplain. "Guess they haven't fully grasped it yet. 
Haven't myself. Wait until we see the home skyline. 
Then they ought to cut loose." 

"Ship can't travel too fast for me," said a medical officer. 
"Just want to bounce up my front steps and grab my wife 



HOMEWARD BOUND 231 

and kid. See that captain over there? Casual from the 
Dental Corps. Lives in New Jersey. Going to be married 
as soon as he hits home and he's as nervous as a caged animal. 
Said hours seemed days. Forever consulting the chart to 
see how far we have traveled. Love is an awful malady." 

It stormed the first night out. The sea ran rather high 
and the rain was heavy. I was in a ward with fifty-nine 
room-mates. I had the distinction of being the only war 
correspondent authorized by the War Department to return 
from France with the Yankee Division. 

Some of my room-mates passed a bad night. In the 
morning there was a stew of blankets, socks, shoes and gar- 
ments on the floor. There were beaucoup vacant chairs at 
breakfast. Hundreds were seasick the second day out. 
Crates of lemons were devoured. The tossing of the trans- 
port played havoc with the digestive organs of the enlisted 
men below decks. Railings were lined by men who were not 
admiring the ocean. 

Guard and other details had to be reorganized, as 50 per 
cent of the details were suffering from what the doughboys 
termed "maritime malade." Band Leader Edward N. 
L'Africain had to cut rehearsal because more than half his 
aggregation were ill. As many of the replacements came 
from inland states, they suffered torments. Many wished 
the Paris metro had been extended. 

"Gee! but this salt air smells good," said a lieutenant 
from Boston. "Been hungry for it for moons." 

"Keep your old salt air," replied a Texan squirmishly. 
"Give me the hot winds of the desert. They don't make you 
dizzy." 

Sunday dawned fair and appetites revived. It was a 
caution the way the ocean breezes sharpened the hunger of 
the men. Those of us who were immune to seasickness will 
never forget the first breakfast aboard. We met our first 
grape fruit since we left home and we didn't spill a drop of 
the precious juice. And the eggs were cooked American 
style and the toast and the bacon and the coffee. My, but 



232 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

it was a banquet. We had grown fond of French cuisine, 
or thought we had, but right then and there we voted we 
wouldn't swap good old Yankee fare for anything in Europe. 

The weather improved the third day and remained mild 
throughout. The sun was radiant several days. Good 
weather started quartet and deck singing. Enthusiasm in- 
creased daily. The mess line for enlisted men was efficiently 
handled and the soldiers praised the food. The Yankee Di- 
vision was pleased to find that most of the officers and crew 
on the America came from Boston. 

It was appropriate that the 101st Infantry should make 
the return voyage on a converted Hamburg-American 
liner, formerly the "Amerika," one of the first German 
passenger liners seized and interned in Boston harbor for 
months, until taken over by the navy. This made it more 
of a family gathering than ever. The America had a ton- 
nage of 22,622 and was 689 feet in length. It was built in 
Belfast, Ire., in 1905. The commanding officer was Captain 
Z. E. Briggs, U. S. N. 

A "gob" sold hundreds of photographs of the ship as 
souvenirs of a trip than which the soldiers on board never 
made a more memorable one, save that across. On the first 
day out the Yankee Division men were astonished to re- 
ceive the ship's daily newspaper, "The America," with a sub- 
line which read "Printed on the High Seas." This edition 
carried wireless messages of the latest world news and per- 
sonals and events on board. Chaplain W. F. Blackard was 
editor. Anybody could act as reporter. 

It was difficult to find a place on so crowded a ship in 
which to write an account of the passage home. Lieutenant 
E. C. O'Shea, U. S. N., a Brighton boy and former member 
of the Brookline Swimming Club, gave me the use of his 
room as a writing den. 

Officers and men of the Yankee Division were made to 
feel at home as soon as they went aboard the America. 
They were shown the utmost courtesy. Every soldier who 
made the trip carried away pleasant memories of the America 



HOMEWARD BOUND 233 

and her crew. The spirit of the voyage was described in the 
first issue of the ship's newspaper, which read: 

"The officers and crew of the U. S. S. America extend to 
every man aboard a genuine welcome. We came across just 
for you, and, for the past ten days, planned and worked that 
you might have a bon voyage. This is your home as long as 
you are aboard. Your record in the sectors of Chemin-des- 
Dames, Toul, Aisne, Marne, St. Mihiel and the Meuse- 
Argonne offensive earned for you a glorious history. You 
are cordially welcomed into your new home." 

That got the soldiers. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Worshippers in Rigging 

B Open-Air Religious Services were held Sunday 
morning on the "well" deck, aft. Chaplain Nivard 
of Wisconsin, attached to the 103d Infantry, cele- 
brated mass at 9 A. M. A section of mess board on 
metal legs served as an altar. The soldiers were banked 
solidly in hollow square on two decks. Some clung to rig- 
ging and rope ladders, while others worshipped astride 
booms and cross-beams. The congregation was too large 
to kneel. 

Private Joseph H. Dowd, H Company, served as altar 
boy and Private William H. Keyes, a musician, stood in 
front of the improvised altar to prevent the sacred articles 
from being tipped off by the swell of the sea. Wind and 
waves had subsided during the night, otherwise it would 
have been difficult to hold the service. 

As it was, the Rev. George S. L. Connor, of Holyoke, was 
obliged to shield the flame of a candle by forming a cup of 
his hand, and Colonel Logan protected another candle in a 
similar manner throughout the service. It would have been 
a fine picture for the movies — that framework of bronzed 
faces and khaki. 

Peppering the olive drab was the blue of the "gobs," 
some of them wearing hip rubber boots, as they had just 
finished swabbing decks. Every head was bared and it was 
cold. Chaplain Connor preached a snappy sermon. He 
said: 

"Men, you are on your way home. You are headed for 
your own country. The long awaited journey is under way. 
Back in the hills, far astern, are many of your gallant com- 
rades who made the supreme sacrifice. Their homes will 

234 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 235 

not be brightened by their return. Those of you who are 
more fortunate are returning to loved ones who are planning 
to give you a wonderful welcome. 

"You will be feted, feasted and made much of. You 
will be received as heroes. You will deserve the honor, but 
right here, let me sound a warning. You must not let that 
welcome turn your heads. You must not permit the grati- 
tude and generosity of your friends and neighbors and the 
patriotic public to blind you to your duty. 

"I beseech you when you return to act like men, like 
true Christians. I hope that you will bear in mind that the 
public does not owe you a living because you came over to 
do your bit as American citizens. 

"I beseech you to remember that a duty well-performed 
is your best reward and that you should expect no other. 
You went to France because your country needed you. 
You went to France because God needed you and because 
humanity required it. 

"You fought like true Americans. Your bravery is a 
matter of record. You faced hardship and peril and disaster. 
You are returning with your colors unsullied, held proudly 
and high. You are returning as part — and a very important 
part — of a victorious army. 

"Therefore, let me advise you that as soon as all the ex- 
citement and enthusiasm of your long awaited return home 
is passed you think of the sterner duties of life. Let me re- 
mind you that you must return without delay to the occu- 
pations which you left to answer the call of your country. 
When you go back, men, get jobs! Don't loaf around the 
corner talking about what you have done. Go straight to 
work. God bless you!" 

A number of soldiers and sailors received communion. 
Officers of all denominations looked down upon the scene 
from upper decks. Immediately after the Catholic service 
Chaplain Lyman Rollins of the 101st Infantry held an Epis- 
copal service. Congregations shifted by means of a filter- 
ing, squirming process which brought new faces to the fore- 



236 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

ground. Chaplain Rollins preached a sermon on the Prodi- 
gal Son. His utterances made a hit. Like Chaplain Con- 
nor, he advised the men to get employment as soon as they 
returned home. 

"In a sermon at the front," said Chaplain Rollins, "I 
rapped the men pretty hard for profanity one Sunday. 
I talked so plainly I didn't know I could get away with it. I 
did not mince words. At the close of the service a dough- 
boy approached me and said: 'You hit me pretty hard today, 
Chaplain. I used to be an Epworth Leaguer, but I got to 
swearing over here.' I told him that as a chaplain I held 
target practice every Sunday and that as I was a fair marks- 
man in the knowledge of human things, I figured on hitting 
a good many bullseyes in every crowd. 

"Back among the hills north of Verdun I was in a skunk 
hole one day with a regimental commander. The hole was 
known as a regimental p. c. Suddenly a runner slipped 
down into our midst through the mud like a toboggan. His 
shirt front was open. He was perspiring. His eyes were 
sunken. He was on the verge of collapse. He said: 'The 
battalion is out there surrounded on three sides. Major 
So-and-So needs reinforcements.' 

"The colonel said: 'We will give them help at once. 
You must go back, runner, through that barrage and tell 
the major to stand firm.' The major and his men did. 
That's what you men must do when you return to civil life. 
You must stand firm, just as you New England men did out 
on the firing line so many times. 

"You must stand firm and alert, just as you did on out- 
post duty. Often the man at an extreme outpost found his 
task lonely and menacing. But because you who per- 
formed that duty did it well you made us fellows farther 
back feel secure. The men on outposts were the ears and 
eyes of the army. They protected and insured the army. 

"One night during our early days on the front line a 
youngster sent word from an outpost that he wanted to see 
me at once. I crept out there under cover of darkness. A 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 237 

novice at the game, the lad felt so lonely and frightened that 
he wanted company and comfort. 

"He began to see things. It was not long before he 
thought the whole German army was coming at him. He 
admitted it and then he said: 'Chaplain, I want to be bap- 
tized. I never have been. Can you do it now? It will 
make me feel better away out here alone.' I baptized him 
on the spot and left him a stronger man. 

"That is what Christ and religion will do for you men. 
Remember, now, when you go home to your various com- 
munities, stand firm! I hope our next service will be in 
Camp Devens next Sunday.' 5 

The soldiers sang many hymns and a Y. M. C. A. worker 
played a folding organ. 

Sunday afternoon there were three band concerts aboard, 
rendered by the 101st and 103d bands and the ship's naval 
band. 

From Sunday on the weather was fine. The men 
squatted all over the decks so compactly that it was diffi- 
cult to walk. They showed the effects of regular meals and 
sleep and ocean breezes and relaxation. They frolicked 
like kittens. They gorged themselves with sweets between 
meals. 

They returned with cast iron stomachs and new disposi- 
tions. They came back changed men, with a broader and 
more serious view of life. 

Within a few hours after anchors were weighed the 
"gobs" were sporting all kinds of insignia and trading with 
doughboys for war trophies. The America was a treasure 
ship of souvenirs, as were the other transports bearing 
Yankee Division units. 

Barracks bags of the enlisted men and trunks of the 
officers were stuffed with gifts and souvenirs for the folks at 
home. War welfare secretaries — the Red Cross, Knights 
of Columbus, Y. M. C. A. and Jewish Welfare — were busy 
distributing candy, apples, oranges and reading matter. 
Impromptu concerts and shows were held. There were 



238 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

three movie shows every night on board. Thursday after- 
noon boxing bouts were held on the aft deck under a dazzling 
sun. There was a scramble for vantage seats after luncheon. 
The 101st band was popular on board. The sailors were 
astonished to hear Bandleader L'Africain had been game 
enough to go all through the "argument" at the age of sixty- 
seven. Leader L'Africain was a professional musician. He 
lived in Auburndale. He was for years cornet soloist in the 
Boston Symphony Orchestra. He made the 101st band the 
best in the American Expeditionary Forces. 

Not one of the best, but the BEST. General Pershing 
said so. The first time he heard it he sent for Leader 
L'Africain and did the latter the honor to meet him half way 
and to shake his hand and congratulate him. 

"General Pershing told me he didn't know there was such 
a splendid band with the American Expeditionary Forces," 
said Leader L'Africain. "He told me he wanted every band 
in the American overseas army to hear our outfit. He liked 
it so well that he later took twenty of our best players for his 
own band at Chaumont. 

"That was a blow. I had to start all over again to pick 
out substitutes and we've come back with a wallop. The 
French said our drums and bugles were as good as anything 
they had over there. Colonel Logan was the first to adopt 
the French bugles, and other American bands followed suit. 
We are to have new cords and flare banners and when the 
men twirl the bugles they ought to bring down the house in 
our home town." 

Sergeant David Michaels, chauffeur for Colonel Logan, 
canvassed the ship, the fourth day out, for tools to 
weld the brass spearhead on the flag which the men of the 
regiment presented to Colonel Logan. 

"It's all silk and hand made," said Davie as he displayed 
the treasure to a group of soldiers and sailors. "The stars 
are all hand made. Each streamer stands for a battle. See, 
the names are handworked, too. Heft it, and see how heavy 
the silk is. Double thickness. 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 239 

"A guy threw the flag off the train and broke the spear- 
head. It was wrapped up in this white linen and he didn't 
know what it was. I walloped him in the kisser for handling 
it so roughly. 

"Haven't got anything on the ship to fix it. Have to 
wait until we get ashore. It's going to be in the parade ahead 
of the colonel. I said good-bye to the colonel's car before 
I came away, the one the associates gave him in Boston. 

"It was a bird. I drove it 30,000 miles, over some tough 
roads. It was hit four times by machine gun bullets and 
has eleven shrapnel scars. Several men were killed in the 
car and four or five killed standing near it. One day a fel- 
low sitting in the back seat was killed and a piece of shrapnel 
was imbedded in the car just ahead of me. The colonel and 
I had some narrow escapes in it, but neither of us was 
scratched. 

"You'd ought to see the colonel up at Chateau Thierry 
on his horse. He rode right up into the thick of it in the 
saddle with shells breaking all around. He looked like a 
fellow in a play. Colonel Logan showed all kinds of nerve. 
The shelling finally became so hot he had to hitch his horse 
behind an embankment and flop in the mud with the dough- 
boys, where he remained for hours in the front line. Colonel 
Logan certainly made good." 

The most popular entertainer on board and in the di- 
vision was Color Sergeant William Connery, son of Lynn's 
former mayor. "Billy" was known by every doughboy in 
the Yankee Division. He was a professional actor and 
played with George Cohan and other celebrities. 

He and his brother, Sergeant Lawrence Connery, were 
singers, pianists and composers. They made a great team. 
"Larry" went home several weeks before, having attended 
officers' school. He and several comrades captured twenty- 
nine Boche in the St. Mihiel drive after having been sub- 
jected to enfilading machine gun fire. "Billy" was de- 
lighted with the achievement of his younger brother, whom 
he idolized. 



240 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"Billy" wrote "Giddy-Gidap," which was the most 
famous song in the Yankee Division. 

Lieutenant William Flaherty of Milton, Company E, 
101st Infantry, was another entertainer in camp and on deck 
and he staged many successful shows for the troops. "Bill" 
was also a professional actor. 

Lieutenant-Colonel William It. Pooley of Buffalo, N. Y., 
who was transferred from the Third Division, Army of Occu- 
pation, to the 101st Infantry, just before Colonel Logan's 
reinstatement, won a warm place in the hearts of the officers 
and men of the regiment. They looked upon him as an "old 
timer." 

Major Frank Piper, assistant surgeon of the 101st In- 
fantry, formerly president of the Massachusetts College of 
Pharmacy and a resident of Hancock Street, West End, 
Boston, was loved by every man in the regiment. 

Major Harry Martin of Springfield, surgeon of the 101st 
Infantry, and the other members of the Medical Section, 
with those of the 103d Infantry, were busy aboard ship and 
as a result the health of the men during the journey was 
excellent. There was not a death on board. 

Colonel Frank M. Hume of the 103d Infantry was urged 
by his friends to be a candidate for governor of Maine. 
They cabled to him about it. He and the Maine troops 
made a splendid record at the front. Colonel Hume and 
Colonel Logan shared the same stateroom and referred to 
each other as the "Blois kids." They said they were study- 
ing a vaudeville sketch entitled "How We Came Back," 
and expected to put it on the Keith circuit. 

Lieutenant-Colonel John J. Barry, postmaster of the 
Upham's Corner Post Office, Dorchester, had charge of the 
ship's guard details during the voyage. Before leaving the 
Postal Express Service of the American Expeditionary Forces, 
Lieutenant-Colonel Barry, then a major, received the follow- 
ing letter of commendation from Adjutant-General Robert 
C. Davis: 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 241 

"Now that you are about to return to the United States 
after ten months' service with the Postal Express Service, I 
desire to record my appreciation of the loyal and efficient 
service you rendered in this department. Your experience 
and sound advice was at all times of great assistance to our 
army postal organization." 

Colonel T. D. Howe, chief of the Army Postal Express 
Service, also commended Lieutenant-Colonel Barry in 
writing. Barry during his ten months of service in the Pos- 
tal Department of the American Expeditionary Forces 
established 110 post offices, one in Holland, one in Italy and 
one in Berlin. 

"I always claimed," said Lieutenant-Colonel Barry, 
"that I never would be satisfied until I had established a 
post office in the capital of Germany, and I did it just before 
I was transferred. It is United States Army Post Office 
No. 946. 

"The manner in which many of the soldiers' letters and 
packages were addressed was amusing and often trouble- 
some. Out of 400 letters examined on one occasion, 280 
were either addressed simply 'American E. P.' or 'Some- 
where in France,' with no attempt to designate the organiza- 
tion. Often the name of the soldier was omitted. In one 
instance a letter read '82380 via New York, A. E. F.' That 
was all that appeared on the envelope. 

"Another letter was addressed 'Wayne E. Drake, 
A. E. F.' Still another 'Mr. Michael F. Tolan, Somewhere 
in France.' One was addressed 'Mr. Benny Hill, colored, 
Colored Regement, Some Where in France.' 

"Letters for men killed in action were always pathetic. 
It was interesting work, but extremely difficult to get the 
organization running smoothly." 

Favorable weather conditions enabled the commander 
of the America to better the daily schedules, with a result 
that on Tuesday half of the journey had been completed — 
1490 miles. 

Dialogues were amusing as officers reclined on bunks. 



242 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

"Count the days on one hand now," said a lieutenant 
Tuesday morning. 

"Won't it be funny to talk with girls without having to 
struggle with French," said a casual aviator. 

"Some of us will have to be d d discreet in our speech 

when we land home," said a captain. "Got to put the 
curbed bit on profanity. Bet a lot of them will spill it right 
in the family circle." 

The Wednesday edition of the ship's newspaper had this 
startling announcement, on the front page : 

"AMERICA WILL NOT STOP AT BOSTON. 
LATEST WIRELESS SAYS HARBOR IS CHOKED 
WITH BEANS." 

That caused a howl. Colonels Logan and Hume kept 
the radio operators busy from Tuesday on. They sent a 
flock of telegrams. Colonel Logan sent this wireless to 
Congressman Gallivan: 

"Returning American soldiers hope soon to greet you, their 
valiant champion." 

Colonel Logan wired to Governor Coolidge of Massachu- 
setts: 

"Greetings from One Hundred First Infantry now in mid- 
ocean." 

Governor Coolidge replied: 

"Massachusetts extends to you and your command the warmest 
welcome and glories in your achievements." 

Colonel Logan wired to Mayor Peters: 

"Greetings to good old Boston and to you from One Hundred 
First Infantry." 

Mayor Peters replied: 

"Boston reciprocates your greetings and welcomes One Hun- 
dred First Infantry and its leader. You cannot come home too 
fast." 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 243 



This one followed: 

"As mayor of Boston request privilege of tendering you the 
first dinner on your arrival. Select date." (The flattering re- 
ception by the leading citizens of Boston at the Copley-Plaza, a 
week later, was the result of this invitation.) 

Colonel Logan wired to General Edwards : 

"Men and officers of One Hundred First Infantry eager and 
happy to meet their former chief." 

General Edwards replied : 

"Many thanks for your fine message. You cannot be happier 
than I am to have your splendid men back again. Most cordial 
welcome to you and your gallant regiment." 

Colonel Logan wired to James J. Phelan, the Boston 
banker, president of the One Hundred and First Associates 
(formerly Ninth Regiment Associates) : 

"Our happiness increases daily. Be with you before week 
ends." 

Mr. Phelan replied: 

"Message received. God bless you all. Boston awaits with 
greatest enthusiasm your home-coming. Nothing has ever hap- 
pened in your life which equals the welcome she intends to give 
you." 

Colonel Logan wired to Henry B. Endicott, Chairman 
Massachusetts Public Safety Committee: 

"A happy regiment is returning to its friends. Greetings to 
you and your family." 

The first wireless which Colonel Logan sent was to his 
parents and he smiled like a delighted schoolboy when this 
came back: 

"Heartiest welcome home. Will be down harbor with special 
party to greet you. Love. MOTHER." 



244 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

Mrs. Logan gave three sons to the cause and they all 
came back to her — Colonel Logan, Captain Francis V. 
Logan, adjutant to General Cole, and Lieutenant Malcolm 
J. Logan, adjutant to General Sweetser. 

The first newspaper greeting received aboard came from 
the Boston American. It read: 

"People of New England and Boston especially send welcome 
home through American to the gallant commander of 'Boston's 
Own!' " 

Colonel Logan did not show me the reply he wirelessed, 
and I discovered the reason when we docked next day. 
Across the top of every edition that day was printed this 
message from the commander of the 101st Infantry: 

"To Editor Boston American: 

"Many thanks for your cordial greetings. All thank you for 
your generous support, and, through you, our Massachusetts 
citizens for their unwavering interest and affection. We are 
bringing with us a splendid type of American journalist, fearless 
and brilliant, Bert Ford." 

A warm greeting was also wirelessed by the Boston Post. 

Colonel Hume, commanding the 103d Infantry, sent 
wireless messages to Senators Hale and Fernald and to Con- 
gressman Hersey and to the governors of Maine and New 
Hampshire. He received a swarm of personal greetings. 

Governor Milliken of Maine wired: 

"Affectionate greetings to yourself and all the boys. Some of 
us will be in Boston tomorrow. The whole State will be there in 
spirit." 

Governor Bartlett of New Hampshire wired: 

"Greetings from New Hampshire. How many New Hamp- 
shire men have you aboard?" (There were about 500 Granite 
State men in the Maine regiment.) 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 245 

Brigadier-General Shelton, commanding the Fifty-first 
Infantry Brigade, was in command of the army units on 
board. He nearly lost the transport at Brest, arriving on 
the dock five minutes before the last launch put out. 

Chaplains O'Connor, Rollins and Mitty worked like 
beavers throughout the trip. 

Private Donald E. Studley of Quincy, one of Colonel 
Logan's orderlies, glanced at himself in a mirror and said: 

"Suppose folks at home think I'm coming back thin and 
pale after war. Look at me. Gained twenty pounds and 
never felt better in my life." 

"Same here!" chirped Private David J. Smart of Milli- 
nocket, Me., orderly to Colonel Hume, inflating his chest. 
"Seems to me I've gained about a dozen inches' expansion." 

The 400 miles clipped off Tuesday was the best day's 
record of the trip. At 8 A. M. Friday we were 433 miles 
from Boston, with a moderate head wind and sea. It was 
arranged to dock at 11 Saturday morning, April 5, 1919. 
(Some date.) Barring engine trouble we could have done it 
in a walk, but at midnight Friday General Shelton received 
a wire, ordering the transport to slow down and not to dock 
until 2 P. M. at the earliest. 

There was speculation because of this sudden shift of 
schedule. General Shelton remarked: 

"We must dock Saturday, because it's my wedding anni- 
versary." 

The change was not popular. Officers and enlisted men 
had begun to slick up and pack up. Some squatted on 
bunks sewing on buttons. The ship's tailors were so 
swamped with work that they recruited help from the 
soldiers. 

Saturday dawned in a mist and fog. The America had 
slowed down during the night. No land was visible for 
hours after the fog lifted, but the proximity of the coast was 
denoted by two sparrows which paid us a visit and fluttered 
and chirped about the ship, much to the amusement of the 
doughboys. 



246 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

At 10 A. M. a gaily decorated tug boat hove in sight and 
remained at a comfortable distance. The transport, in 
order to kill time, and not arrive ahead of the hour set be- 
cause of lack of train facilities at the dock, began to describe 
great circles and the soldiers took up the cry: 

"We're turning back!" 

"Give the skipper a pathfinder. He doesn't know where 
Boston is!" 

"We don't want to go home. Like h we don't! 

Point her south, cap, and lay on full steam." 

These were samples of the deck chatter. 

Then a torpedo destroyer arrived dramatically and led 
the way. About this time it became noised about that Sam 
Browne belts must not be worn ashore. 

"Got to pack 'em away in moth balls or use 'em for 
razor straps," said a discouraged lieutenant, "and just be- 
cause we might ruffle the sensibilities of fellows who didn't 
get over. I think we ought to be allowed to go home in 
what was good enough to wear overseas." 

"Hear ! Hear !" came in chorus. 

There was a drone familiar to the battlefields, and out 
of the haze swept a hydroplane driven by "Ted" Hedlund of 
the Boston Post. It gave a pretty touch to the welcome. 

Then out of the slate-colored horizon came a fleet that 
looked like huge baskets of flowers in the distance. The 
craft were fairly bursting with people and patriotism, and 
were draped with flags and bunting from stem to stern. 
Our transport seemed in a sea strewn with flowers and flags. 

Nearly everybody had a megaphone. They cheered and 
sang through them and asked all sorts of questions which 
couldn't be interpreted. Everybody was talking at once 
and everybody was 100 per cent excited. The saucy U- 
boat chasers were the first out and they ventured nearest, 
each carrying a galaxy of yeogirls in their nattiest uniforms. 
The soldiers flirted with them in French. All the way up 
the harbor there were barrages of wafted kisses. 



WORSHIPPERS IN RIGGING 247 

About everything that floated was there, even to the 
trusty tub that carries offenders to Deer Island on ordinary 
days, and you could scarcely recognize her in her festive 
attire. Somebody overlooked the swanboats in the Public 
Garden. There was a chance for some ingenious politician 
to get publicity by pedalling a swanboat down the bay to 
the welcome. 

Bands on the boats in the welcome fleet did their utmost 
to make more noise than the bands on the transport. First 
glimpses of familiar landmarks caused delight and feelings 
so intense that you just wanted to look at them without 
being interrupted, to feast your eyes on objects that you had 
thought you might never see again. The fellows from the 
West and South were most eager to catch a glimpse of 
Bunker Hill Monument. 

Steamer and factory whistles began to toot. Castle 
Island was black with people and we could see them waving 
frantically and could hear their cheers. As we swept past it 
Colonel Logan and his staff stood on the port bridge with 
the regimental colors, making a striking grouping. The 
young commander of the 101st Infantry was within vision 
of his birthplace. 

The port officials, medical and customs, and local com- 
mittees and General Edwards had boarded the transport 
outside the harbor. Colonel Hume received Governor 
Milliken and other officials from Maine in his stateroom. 

It seemed as if all America had rushed down to the water- 
front. Wharves, bridges, housetops, berthed steamships — 
everything was bristling with eager, exultant humanity. 
You know how it was. You probably were part of the wel- 
coming throng, or read all about the details of the reception 
given the America and all the transports that brought home 
the men of the Yankee Division. 

Those who witnessed the home-coming of troops in New 
York said their welcome "couldn't hold a candle" to the wel- 
come given the New England troops, and we believed it, be- 
cause Massachusetts and New England always do things right. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Terra Firma at Last 

BAnd the hardest part of all was to be compelled 
to hear the bugle call on board the America Sunday 
morning. To be ' 'so near and yet so far' ' from home 
taxed the patience of the troops, but they were good- 
natured about it, because weren't they warped tight and fast 
against the good old U. S. A. at last? 

General Shelton, Colonels Logan and Hume and a few 
other ranking officers were given shore leave and so was I 
for four hours, but we returned to the troopship and slept 
aboard that night. Groups of relatives lingered in the 
vicinity of Commonwealth Pier until quite late in the hope 
that their Willies and their Toms might get ashore. 

It was a long night for the doughboys, who were astir 
with the peep of day, Sunday, April 6, when the real landing 
was made. All hands were up at 5 and some long before 
that, and by 6.30 the troops began streaming down the 
gangways. 

The enormous pier hummed with life. A big force of 
war workers distributed good things to the soldiers. The 
Red Cross women, in fetching uniforms, served delicious 
coffee and buns. As the men marched to the floor below 
where the long trains awaited them, bands played and they 
passed through a runway that turned out to be a veritable 
horn-of-plenty. 

Red Cross, Knights of Columbus, Y. M. C. A., Jewish 
Welfare and other representatives gave the soldiers candy, 
khaki handkerchiefs, post cards and Sunday editions of the 
Boston newspapers, giving a full account of the arrival of the 
America with many photographs. 

The troop movement to Camp Devens was carried out 
with dispatch. The 101st and 103d Regiments were for- 

248 



TERRA FIRM A AT LAST 249 

warded ahead of schedule in trains that left the dock about 
every twenty minutes. There were fifteen in all. 

Long strings of clean day coaches were used and the men 
flopped into red plush seats with a relish that was audible. 

"Got the French freight cars beaten blocks," said a fat 
corporal. "No smelly straw. Hang the military de luxe 
cars that are labelled 'forty hommes or eight cheveaux.' 
Give me the good old American coaches. Hey, fellows?" 

There was an affirmative howl. The three-hour trip 
from the pier to Camp Devens over the New Haven & Hart- 
ford to Concord Junction and thence over the Boston & 
Maine to the cantonment was one unbroken ovation. It 
had the trips to and from the Mexican border faded. It 
was as stirring in its fervor as the wonderful harbor demon- 
stration and often even more gripping and spectacular, 
though of an entirely different slant. 

It was more of a home and community celebration, in 
which towns and hamlets and farming sections vied with 
each other in honoring the returning heroes. It was a sort 
of everybody's back door demonstration. Rear clothes 
sheds became popular balconies from which to pay homage. 

The crowds began along the track just outside the pier. 
Every bridge and station and crossroad, every railroad cross- 
ing and yard, was thronged. 

A doughboy said: 

"I didn't know there were so many flags in the world. 
New England does things up brown. I'm from California, 
and seeing what we did down the harbor and this show today 
has caused me to decide to stay and see the parade celebration. 
Some spectacle. Wait until I tell them about it at home." 

Men, women and children lined the tracks close enough 
to touch the hands of soldiers, who poked their arms through 
open windows. By this method refreshments were passed 
with the train going at fair speed. Girls and boys pleaded 
for souvenirs and some of the girls were old enough to be 
doughboys' sweethearts. It was not long before the soldiers, 
always quick to take advantage of romance, began dropping 



250 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

post cards out of windows and scaling them from platforms 
into the crowds. 

The girls scrambled for them, because on each card was 
scrawled the address of some gallant doughboy who longed 
to correspond with the recipient. 

Passing locomotives, and those at roundhouses, shrieked 
a welcome. Church bells were rung. Dudley Street station, 
Bird Street, Hyde Park, Walpole, Norwood and South 
Framingham did themselves proud. The men of the 101st 
were thrilled when they caught a glimpse of the street in 
South Pramingham down which they marched in June, 1916, 
to entrain for the Mexican border, and in September, 1917, 
to entrain for Hoboken and sterner duty overseas. 

Walpole had a band and there was another at South 
Framingham. The crowd was dense and full of pep at 
Framingham; in fact, every group bubbled over with ex- 
uberance and patriotism. One thought what a job Ger- 
many or any other power would have to bridle or crush such 
a spirit. It was typically and gratifyingly American. It 
made the returning soldiers swell with pride. It made them 
thankful they were home. It bucked them up. It was a 
reward which they appreciated. 

Big flags were strung from windows and fences and tele- 
graph wires and trees. Banners were erected on poles 
driven into lawns bearing all sorts of snappy inscriptions. 
One read: 

"You gave them hell, fellows." 

Another was labelled: 

"We were with you all the way through." 

"Welcome home, boys," was the popular line. Many 
small placards bore this greeting and children held them 
with flags. Crossing tenders held "stop" signs in one hand 
and flags in the other. Every time the train stopped the 
soldiers were deluged with home-made fudge, apples and 
oranges. Women and girls came down to the steps with 
baskets stuffed with sandwiches and cake. The men 
gloated over the home-made bread. 



TERRA FIRM A AT LAST 251 

Two girls came panting down the track. One carried a 
huge squash pie. A doughboy shouted, "Put on the brakes ! 
Here's a chance for a real New England treat and she's 
already sprinted six kilometers to get it to me." 

"Get it to you no thin' ! It's going to be for me if I ever 
get my hooks on it," said another. 

This happened at Walpole, where the housewives were 
unusually generous and where cooking was Al. That pie 
was no sooner handed through the car window than it 
melted like snow in a hot sun. 

It was almost a continuous cheer, and it seemed as if the 
entire way was walled with flags. At one station there was 
a juvenile drum corps and the members wore soldiers' hats 
made of newspapers. A few stations beyond stood two 
Grand Army veterans in uniform, beating drums as they did 
in the sixties. 

The babies and little girls and the elderly men and 
women, all with flags, made dramatic groupings. But the 
most gripping figure of all was a woman in black who stood 
on a hill alone waving a service flag with one star in the 
center, and a soldier who knew her said it was the mother 
of a bunkie who was bumped off by a shell in St. Mihiel. 

The Yankee Division units were railroaded through the 
sanitary process and physical inspection after their arrival 
at Camp Devens, a work that was finished with dispatch, 
after which units were placed in quarters where they re- 
mained until mustered out. 

The first Sunday in camp drew a big crowd, in spite of 
erroneous announcements that the public would not be 
allowed. The relatives and friends came to camp by train 
and trolley, in barges and automobiles and about every- 
thing on wheels. It was a rollicking reunion. Bandleader 
L'Africain gave a concert and showed the home folks how 
his band could play and flourish French bugles. 

It was the first time the majority of the Yankee Division 
men saw the Massachusetts cantonment where national 
army divisions were trained, and they liked it immensely. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

Spirit of 1861 and 1918 

B Liberal leaves were granted as soon as medical 
requirements had been met. The soldiers were so 
eager to get home that they could not wait for 
trains. They clubbed and went to Boston and 
Worcester and Fitchburg and Lowell by automobile. This 
demand started a taxi service to neighboring cities and 
automobile owners reaped a harvest. 

When trunks and barracks bags were sorted, it was dis- 
covered that the baggage of the returning heroes had been 
looted by souvenir pirates. Scores of barracks bags had 
been slit with knives and souvenirs and gifts which dough- 
boys had brought for relatives and which could not be dupli- 
cated were stolen. Locks were broken and trunks rifled. 
Even the personal effects of the army chaplains were not 
respected by the ghouls. The baggage scandal caused 
rigid investigation and arrests and the recovery of some of 
the property. 

Sergeant Thomas Jones of No. 29 Dracut Street, Dor- 
chester, member of H Company, 101st Infantry, gave a 
soldier's offhand description of his arrival in the family 
circle, and it was pretty much what happened in the ma- 
jority of doughboys' homes: 

"I got leave from Camp Devens and didn't let out a yip 
that I was coming. The first thing they knew Tommy was 
in their midst," said Jones, between puffs. 

"My saint of a mother just stood off looking at me, sort 
of stunned like for a minute, and then she came at me and I 
thought she'd bowl me over with hugs and kisses. 

"First she laughed and then she cried and my sister had 
similar fits of joy and grief and it got me. 

252 



SPIRIT OF 1861 AND 1918 253 

"I said to them, 'What are you blubbering about? Ain't 
I back with two arms and legs and a whole hide? Any- 
body 'd think I was a corpse.' And then they told me they 
couldn't help laughing and crying, it seemed so good to have 
me back well and strong. I felt like a boob, they made such 
a fuss. I never thought anybody cared so much for me. 

"It was great to be home, to see the old faces and the old 
furniture and my old room that I often thought I'd never 
live to see again, and to meet our friends and neighbors. 

"Mother asked me what I'd like best to eat, and I told her 
to bring on the biggest steak she could get. 'Meat on 
Friday?' she gasped. 'Bless us, Tom, but the army has 
corrupted you entirely.' 

"I had to laugh at her astonishment. I said, 'Mother, 
there isn't any Friday or Sunday in the army in time of war. 
All days are alike. There are no religious bindings* Catho- 
lics can eat meat on Friday and Jews can gobble pork seven 
days a week, if they can get it. It's a special dispensation 
made by agreement of the War Department and the 
churches. Men must have their strength to fight. Some 
of the fellows said it would be tough to go back to meatless 
Fridays.' 

"Well, that converted mother. She broiled a whopper 
and Saturday she cooked beans the way I like them and 
made a brown bread, which she knew was one of my weak- 
nesses, and she warned me to be home in time for supper 
Saturday night, and I intended to, because she deserved my 
company, but once I got out, visiting the fellows at the shop 
and running into friends on the street, my date with mother 
went by the boards. 

"I kept it in mind constantly, but so-and-so wanted me 
to go to his house and then I had to go to somebody else's 
house, even if but for ten minutes, or they'd be sore, and the 
long and short of it was that I had three suppers that night and 
didn't get home until eleven thirty. And what do you think? 

"There sat mother waiting for me, and she gave me a 
good-natured earful for disappointing her, and then she had 



254 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

her revenge by forcing me to eat a platter of beans and brown 
bread, late as it was. It was all I could do to force it down, 
but I did to please her. I felt like a boarding house turkey 
when I went to bed. But I was home, between sheets, 
stronger than I ever felt in my life and I thanked God in the 
dark. 

"Seeing those mules over there reminds me of a team we 
had at the front. The fellows nicknamed them Sardine 
and Skyrocket. A big Texan drove them. Those animals 
were wonders. They had more narrow escapes than you 
could count and they came through unscratched and every 
fellow in the gang was glad. I rode up with them many 
times when the shells were bursting and a cooler pair I never 
saw. A lot of mules and horses bit the dust, but Sardine 
and Skyrocket bore charmed lives. Say, if a shell got them 
the whole company would have worn deep mourning. They 
were our pets. We all fed them with sweets and they were 
like a couple of spoiled kids. 

"Mascots went big in the front lines. Fellows had dogs 
they would have almost died for, stray purps they picked 
up in villages. Some of them had been German mascots. 
They had been owned by French families first and captured 
by the Germans and when they got into the Yanks' hands 
they had to forget French and German and learn United 
States. Did you pipe how the fellows smuggled purps in 
barracks bags until we got out to sea and notice how they 
began to turn up and roam around deck the second day out? 
Mascot love did that. I pity a guy that was cruel to any 
of those purps. 

"I always felt bad for the animals. The dog mascots 
went all through the scrap with outfits. What we fellows 
felt worst for were the mules and horses when you came 
across them dead, all torn up by shells. You see it wasn't 
their fight. It was a man's row and they had to come in and 
do the dirty work and take gas and air bombs and shells, 
with never a chance to strike back. 



SPIRIT OF 1861 AND 1918 255 

"Man! how some of those critters had to tug at the traces 
in the mud and the hell holes they had to go through, with- 
out a whimper. That's why we used to feed all the sugar 
we could get to Sardine and Skyrocket. We hated to 
leave them on the other side. They were munching oats 
the last I saw of them, just as if they hadn't been through 
the greatest war in history." 

Sergeant Jones' reference to the sacrifice made by ani- 
mals reminded me of a story I got early in our operations in 
the war from a Lynn jockey whom I met in Paris. He was 
wearing a Canadian uniform. His words tell it best: 

"I didn't know Uncle Sam was going to be mixed up in 
the fracas or I would have waited and joined his army. I 
wanted to see it and joined the Canadian Corps and I've 
seen my fill at Vimy Ridge and other scraps. 

"I drive the leads in an artillery outfit. I used to ride 
racers at Combination Park in Medford. Do you know the 
place? Of course you do, if you hail from Boston. Lynn 
is my hangout, when I'm home. 

"I'm on a few days' leave now and I'm not too happy, 
because I lost one of the best pals I ever had in my life. His 
name was Dick. A shell got him. 

"No, not a trooper. Only a horse. I've handled a few 
in my day, but never came across one that compared with 
Dick, only Jenny, his mate. Perhaps it's the game we're in 
that makes me feel such affection, but I almost cried when I 
looked down at Dick all bunged up. And the worst of it 
was, we couldn't do a thing for him. If horses cry, Jenny 
must have, too. She hasn't been the same since. 

"She bites and kicks Dick's successor and won't have a 
thing to do with him. It's broken up the family and makes 
it harder for me, because the new horse is a willing beast, 
but he can't hold a candle to Dick, and I know it and Jenny 
knows it. Poor thing, she's pining. I can't cheer her up, 
no matter what I do for her. 

"When it happened a blonde kid was driving the wheel 
pair on our gun. He had run away from home and was an 



256 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

American and joined up in Canada. He was new enough to 
be still shell shy and curious. Every one that broke he 
talked about, which is a sure sign of the novice. 

"Well, there was one came that he didn't hear or see. 
That is always the one that has your number. The shell 
that bumped off the kid got Dick also, and wounded both 
the wheel animals and bounced Jenny and me a bit (I was 
riding her at the time), but didn't mar either of us. 

"I miss Dick more than I can tell. I had cared for him 
and Jennie like a couple of children. They almost talked 
to me. I shared blankets with them wet nights and I 
looked for the feel of their noses in the dark and damned if 
I don't wish it hadn't happened, because I loved Dick and 
it spoils another good horse, because Jenny ain't the same." 

Captain Nicholas Biddle, remount officer in the Yankee 
Division and a famous horseman, acquired valuable ex- 
perience at the front in the handling of hundreds of horses 
and mules. His report is interesting and instructive. He 
tells how they coped with a serious outbreak of mange in 
the Toul sector and of the heavy losses from exposure, shell 
fire and gas while the animals were kept in advanced echelons. 
He said: 

"As a result, the greater part of the artillery animals 
were taken back to the more or less sheltered rear echelons, 
while the animals of the infantry and other divisional units 
were stabled in the somewhat demolished but nevertheless 
sheltered casernes of Verdun. 

"Mules for the rolling kitchens, ration carts, water carts, 
and a number of mules for machine guns had necessarily to 
be kept up fairly close to the lines, and it was these animals 
that shared the brunt of the shelling and exposure. 

"The plan, however, was adopted to alternate these 
animals, so that after one had served several days at the 
front it was brought back to a rear echelon, rested and cared 
for, while another took its place. 

"Up behind the lines picketing of animals in small groups 
of three, four and six was employed as protection from shell 



SPIRIT OF 1861 AND 1918 257 

fire. There was an instance, however, in a certain machine 
gun company where this was not done, and twelve fine 
mules, tied together on one picket line, were completely 
wiped out by a shell landing directly beside them. 

"The so-called 'mule skinners' took care of their animals 
under conditions when it was bad enough to have to look 
after one's self, yet without the glory of the men in the 
trenches, although their work was often equally as hazardous 
and courageous." 

The work of veterinarians and horsemen at the front 
was of tremendous importance, because horse flesh was 
valuable. It was a factor, a mighty big factor, in the scale 
of victory or defeat. 

On the British front there was an enormous hospital for 
horses and mules directed by a veterinary of world renown 
who cared for the pedigreed stock in the stables of King 
George, the Kaiser and other royalty before the war. This 
expert and hundreds of trained subordinates were doing 
marvels curing and rebuilding animals that had been 
wounded by shrapnel, gassed or that had become exhausted 
or sick in the service. 

The care and treatment given to the numerous animal 
patients, the way they were classified, the wards with serious 
cases, the convalescent yards and the whole works were 
wonderful to behold. There were bundles of heart-gripping 
animal stories in the animal hospitals at the front, stories 
going to waste for the want of the telling and the lack of 
time to dig them out. 

Just bear in mind when you see a tired horse in the street 
or one taxed by too great a load that his fellow creatures 
helped win the war for democracy, helped in a greater 
measure than you will ever realize. Thousands upon 
thousands of animals perished in the cause and, as Sergeant 
Jones said, it wasn't their fight. 

The divisional review at Camp Devens, on Wednesday, 
April 23, was attended by all the governors of New England. 
It was a striking spectacle. The thousands who witnessed 



258 THE FIGHTING YANKEES OVERSEAS 

it will probably remember longest the sea of steel helmets 
shining in the sun. The helmets gave a look of added power 
to the ranks. 

The soldiers will never forget the great parade of Friday, 
April 25, in Boston, and the generous homage paid by the 
Bay State and its people. They will probably never forget 
the smoke that curled high from the bonfires around which 
they danced and warwhooped when they emptied the straw 
filling of their mattresses, the day they were mustered out. 

The days of welcome and celebration were days of lasting 
impressions. I rode with the staff of Colonel Logan in the 
parade. It was a wonderful experience passing, in the 
saddle, through that flood of eager faces and flags, past miles 
of reviewing stands. 

It was stirring to see the crowds rise on both sides like 
a tide as the popular leader of the 101st Infantry approached 
— to ride through that hurricane of applause and confetti. 
Newspaper headlines that day said a million sightseers 
flocked to Boston. It was easy for those of us who passed 
through the concourse to believe it. 

The flag display of the Spanish War Veterans was a 
feature, and the long line of automobiles bearing wounded 
gave an idea of war's toll. The snow-white flag, carried 
alone, bearing the figures 1730, the total of the Yankee Di- 
vision's dead, was also grim. General Edwards remarked: 
"That flag is the whole parade." 

But I shall remember longest and most tenderly the sec- 
tion reserved for the veterans of the G. A. R. It was risky 
for them to sit out there so long on such a biting day. That 
banking of grand old men in the blue of other days was to 
me the keynote of the $300,000 celebration. They rose to 
answer to the salutes of the Boston regiment. I saw tears 
trickling down wrinkled faces. 

They were trembling, almost overcome, with patriotic 
emotion. Some were too moved to give utterance to the 
cheers which they attempted. For those old warriors it 

BD-6 6, 



SPIRIT OF 1861 AND 1918 259 

was a crowning hour. The day meant more to them than to 
any of the assembled thousands. 

They were gathered to pay tribute to a type of fighting 
man new in America — youngsters equipped with helmets 
and gas masks, the strange accoutrement of modern warfare. 

They had been spared to see the principles for which 
they had fought and bled defended by their sons and grand- 
sons and to see them triumph. They had been spared to 
see the spirit that actuated them, aflame in the breasts of a 
younger generation. 

No wonder they cried. It was the first meeting of the 
patriots of 1861 and the patriots of 1918. 

New England had delivered again. 

American traditions and ideals were secure. 

The End. 



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